The Shades of Pride Rock
by snowysmt
Summary: Inspired by the book The Mists of Avalon, this is the story of the pride from Mufasa and Scar's birth up to at least a year postSP as told through the eyes of the primary the Disney lionesses. Story's currently on indefinite hiatus. Sorry.
1. Prologue, Lady of the Lake: Chapter One

The Shades of Pride Rock

The Shades of Pride Rock

_By Snowy_

Disclaimer:

Of course, this is a _Lion King_ fanfic and, as such, will utilize elements (and scenes and dialogue as needed and deemed necessary) from _The Lion King_, _Simba's Pride_, _The Lion King on Broadway_, and from the hard-to-find book set _The Lion King: Six New Adventures_. Any and everything appearing within these works are all copyrighted to Disney. I'm not taking any credit for those.

The seed of the idea for this project came while reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's fabulous _The Mists of Avalon_. In that nearly 900-page novel, the story of King Arthur is told from the viewpoint of the women behind the throne. Towards the end of the book, I got the idea to do something similar with TLK and SP -- tell them (and a considerable deal more) from the viewpoint of the primary lionesses (those belonging to Disney). If you've read _The Mists of Avalon_, then you'll probably catch some tips of the hat to it. I did draw some inspiration from the book, but this is a disclaimer not a spoiler, so, again, anyone familiar with the book will recognize where those sections are.

All else, however, are my brainchildren, so please treat them with respect.

I don't know as yet just how violent or otherwise adult this is going to be (heck, I'm still writing it, after all), but I will say in so much that I don't think this is something that a kid still in single digit years -- a kid less than ten -- should read. I'd say, just to cover my bases, that if you're not old enough to be reading, at the absolute least, young adult novels then you probably should just stop now and wait until you are. Sorry, but I don't want any angry parents saying that their little darling's eyes were soiled because they weren't warned that this was above and beyond them. Here's the warning; parents take heed. To everyone else, by all means, enjoy.

And, finally, don't do anything with this (other than the obvious saving to your computer and/or printing it out for reading leisure) without asking me first. Comments, questions, critiques, and just about anything else can be sent to me at [SnowySMT@aol.com][1] Be forewarned, though, that I can be rather slow in getting my email replies out, so please be patient, or send me a reminder if you haven't gotten anything back after a few weeks.

Prologue

URU SPEAKS...

_In my time, and indeed beyond it, I have been known as many things: rogue, sorceress, storyteller, savior, healer, mother, mate, and queen. I have been equally revered and feared, not for any spite I may hold for others, no, but for the power and mystery that I wield. Never for me was the path of deceit and trickery, for if it had ever been I could have walked that same path which led my _tiba _from me. And I must draw cold comfort from those Four whom I served, whom I still serve, knowing that it was Their Will, whatever the ends may be. Yet still I look back to the day -- regardless of whatever the Four had wished to come of it -- back to the day when I could not even hope that my _tiba _could step off that path which They had chosen for him, that he could ever come back to me. And whether he knew it or not, believed it or not, he walked with the Second of the Four, and I must draw comfort from that which was -- which is -- Her Will._

_But I get ahead of myself, for that was long into this tale I weave, regardless of the voice that speaks. Though, if truth be told, not so long in this as when the others speak. It was long yet into my own life...and came closer to marking its end, from my own vantage, than I could comprehend at the time._

_Here I exercise the third of that which I have been called, and invoke the Fourth of the Four, for it is She who keeps the stories. Perhaps you have heard this story before...or perhaps you only think you have. Many tales of Great Kings have been told from royal father to royal son, but how many of those tales are passed on a lioness's tongue? Neither is more true than the other, as both lose nothing in the telling, even when told by those who were there. Always the truth has been what you hold to your heart, and no one else's heart may contradict yours. And so, perhaps, truth, real truth, which is as elusive as the Fourth of the Four, lies somewhere between the two, somewhere between that which is told by kings to their sons and that which is told by the pride to its children._

_Truth lies where all elements meet: earth, sky, fire, water. Where one can hold its counter without event, save to those who know their significance. And I, who was queen, who truly lived and truly (so I thought) died on those shores, at the welling spring that is life-force to that place where all Four meet, tell the tale as I know it, for there is no other truth for me, much as I wish there were. I lived to see that which I loved most, my_ tiba_, turn from me, and to watch helpless as the rift between him and his brother grew. I died to watch in the service of the Four in hope that that rift would heal; however many cycles of the seasons it took. And many cycles it would take indeed._

_So I tell this tale as warning that the past can repeat itself, but only if we forget that which has gone before. I tell this tale as one who has lived it, in all voices who have power, those voices, which are also mine through betrothal or blood. I am she who gave birth to two kings: he who walked his father's path more closely than he knew, and he who brought both down. I am Uru, Queen of Pride Rock._

Book One: Lady of the Lake

Chapter One

The blood-rich scent of birth filled the secluded chamber that Uru had chosen for her lair. On any other occasion she would have been sleeping quietly at her mate's side in the main cavern of Pride Rock, with nothing but the pride and the waxing moon to keep them company. Many of the pride's lionesses had frowned at her insistence to seek out a private place in which to bring her cubs into the world. But they were the ones who had always known, as their ancestors had, the comforts of pridal life. They were social, almost to a fault, feeling that everything should be done with the pride. _One wonders what they would do if they found their mate choosing to "share" himself with another lioness,_ Uru had mused once to Kinyamkela, who she had known since cubhood. They were like sisters, Kinyamkela having been raised by Uru's mother alongside her own cubs. Uru remembered those times at Pride Rock, when all the pride looked at them with caution because they were of rogue blood. Uru's mother had sought sanctuary within the Pride Lands during the great drought that had ravaged the land during Mohatu's reign -- a rogue lioness with five young cubs to raise was hard pressed to survive those times with all her cubs alive. Of those five, Uru and Kinyamkela were the last two remaining at Pride Rock; Uru's sisters having left to reclaim their rogue heritage. Kinyamkela had stayed because Uru had stayed, and Uru had stayed not only because her mother had settled into pride living, but also because she, Uru, had been promised to the heir apparent, Ahadi. And now she had his cubs curled absently suckling at her belly. She smiled. How could those pride lionesses ever think that she would relinquish this private moment between mother and children so that they might have something to coo over before she herself had recovered from the birth? But that was their mentality, and she felt a slight stab of guilt that she had denied them the joy that they had been looking forward to for several cycles of the moon now. They would still get their chance to swoon over the newborns; it was not as if she were going to keep them cloistered away down in her chosen lair forever. And they would have more than her own young to shower with the love of a doting aunt: Kinyamkela was also with cub, and would doubtless be bringing her own little ones into the world soon, if she hadn't already. And still there was the social Naima, who would bring forth her children into the waiting bustle of some communal cave. Much as Uru knew that the pride would have preferred to have had the chance to assist in a royal birth, she also knew that the excitement caused by the proximity of the three lionesses' times would allow them to forgive her. They knew her rogue nature and, since she was queen, they respected her wishes.

A weak cry at her side made her turn to her cubs. They had stopped nursing, having fallen asleep at their posts. She smiled softly down at them. The cry came again and she knew as only a mother could that it was made from a dream and little more. She licked the stirring sleeper with her tongue, letting its rough but gentle caresses lull him deeper into the realm of dreams. He snuggled gently against her, burrowing into her belly fur so that it lay contrasting with his dark natal coat. Sighing, he slipped into a silent slumber.

Uru licked him once more, then leaned back, reflecting upon him and his brother. She had yet to officially name them, feeling that she should let Ahadi have at least some input into her choice. A smile flickered mischievously across her muzzle. Her mind was almost made up, and all the choice Ahadi would really have would be the chance to voice his approval. She had already decided upon what she would call the eldest, the one whose natal coat showed promise of a golden hue: Mufasa, after some great king or honorable warrior from some half-remembered story told to her in cubhood. What feats the hero had done she could not recall, only that she remembered the name now having been surrounded by an aura of nobility and power. It was fitting for the son of a king, and it would have been a shame to leave it only to live in legends. Mufasa, her Mufasa, was strong; she could see it in the way he jostled with his smaller brother for position at her teats. It was no cruelty or greed that drove him to seek the best places, but rather the instinctive functions of an infant lion. She licked him as he slept innocently beside his brother. One day, she knew as queen, she would have to give him to his father so that he could take his place as king. As queen she knew that day would come when he would be more his father's than he was hers. _How can the others be so willing to give up this sacred time?_ He would love her still, and she him, but there would always be the throne between them, or so the queen before her, Ahadi's mother, had warned. The younger, though, the little dark shadow to the heir, was hers. He would be required to know how to rule, should -- the Four forbid -- the need ever arise, but he would not be obligated to spend all time with his father. He was hers until he said otherwise. She licked the silent sleeper. He had her dark coat, the coat she had inherited from her own mother, in stark contrast to that coat which his brother had inherited from their father. Mufasa would belong in time to Ahadi, and so Ahadi had rights to name him as he would; but the dark brother was hers, and so she had rights to name him as she would. Ahadi could not lay claims. Again she licked her younger son. Taka, she had decided. To wish, for he was her wish, her own child where Mufasa could never be as he grew to the kingship. To ask, for if he had inherited more from her than her coat then he would be inquisitive and always questioning. _Taka shari...to defy...to challenge...._

Uru's head snapped up, her eyes searching for the one who had invaded her sanctuary and had dared to mock her choice in her very presence. But how could they have followed her thoughts? A shiver ran down Uru's spine as she realized who it was who had spoken. She would find no lioness standing at the cave's entrance or lurking in the shadows, taunting her. The voice had come from within, and only One of the Four could do that. She shivered again, drawing herself tightly around her cubs. But which of the Four Sisters had spoken? Only Two ever spoke thus: the Second and the Fourth. How she hoped that it was the Fourth, Hurul-ayni, who would offer such words as warning, not as curse or promise. Her mother had done well to teach her the Goddesses' lore; if she had not, Uru would not have recognized the Voice for what It was. She turned to her oblivious young. _What do They have lying in wait for you, my darlings?_

A shadow fell across her, and it took all her will to keep from leaping to her paws, claws and teeth bared.

"Uru?" It was a voice she knew, one that had a face in the land of mortal lions. Ahadi stood in the entrance, peering in on her. She had not wanted to be disturbed -- when she was ready, she would come. She had told him it explicitly, and he had agreed. What was he doing here?

Breathing deeply to regain her composure, she asked, "Yes?" She was too badly shaken by the Voice and Its implications to lash out at her mate; she was glad he was there, if only because it gave her mind something else to think about.

"Are you...all right?" he asked, taking a hesitant step forward. He was worried about her. This was his first time being a father and Uru knew that he would be apprehensive.

"Yes," she took one more deep breath to steady herself. "I'm fine."

All at once his face broke into the most relieved smile she had ever seen on him. He exhaled heavily, as though he had been holding his breath since leaving the communal cave. Uru blinked, the scent of death wafting through her lair for a moment so brief that she wasn't sure it had even been there.

"What's happened?" she asked. Of course something had happened; nothing else would have prompted Ahadi to come and check on her against her will and his word.

At her question, his smile and relief at her safety vanished. _By the Four, what has happened?_ He looked away, gazing sadly up towards the communal cave. "Naima's birthing did not go well," he said quietly, stilling gazing towards the cave. "Only one of her cubs wasn't stillborn."

Uru recoiled. Stillborn. _Oh, Ahadi, why did you tell me that now?_ The Second of the Four was Mistress of Stillbirths. If she had visited so upon Naima, then it could well have been She Who had spoken. "No," Uru whispered, fervently hoping that One other than She had been the Voice she had heard. If one cub was spared, then Another of the Four -- the Third or the Fourth, perhaps -- could have intervened, and it was One of Them Who she had heard. Uru clung fervently to that hope.

"The others said to check on you..." Ahadi continued, leaving the _just in case_ unspoken. Uru stared up at him, her eyes wide and fearful. "But you are all right?" he asked, the hope in his voice painful to Uru's ears. How could she tell him that she was not? She couldn't, and she knew it.

"Yes," she met his eyes, calming the wild beating of her heart. "I'm fine." She watched as he nodded, then began to retreat back towards where the pride waited, doubtless mourning the loss of the stillborn cubs. Her heart stilled long enough to be twisted by grief for them. "Tell Naima that I'm sorry and that I would be there with her if I could," Uru entreated of her mate before he had vanished from the cave.

Ahadi paused and the light of the full moon reflected off of the tears that streaked his cheeks. "Naima is dead," he said quietly, yet somehow the wind carried the words to Uru. Her heart stopped. _Naima...dead...?_ Such death, too, belonged to the Second. Uru curled tightly around her children, shielding them the only way she knew how.

"What will happen to the surviving cub?" _With no mother to suckle it, surely it will die._ If Ahadi asked, Uru would offer to rear the cub, the same way her own mother had taken in Kinyamkela. Even if he did not ask, she would offer. It should not end like that.

"Kinyamkela bore only one cub," Ahadi told her. "She sent word back when she was told of Naima that she would gladly care for the orphan."

Uru nodded, numbed. Yes, that was only appropriate. One orphan should repay the gift of her life by giving that same gift to another. Uru would not offer.

Her mate turned to her, a smile fighting to find its way across his face. "What news should I bring the others? Good, I hope."

She smiled lovingly, squelching her tears with the sense of her family. "Two sons, Ahadi," her smile broadened as she saw his smile win out against the weight of the tragedy in the communal cave. "Both are healthy and gave their mother no trouble."

He was glad to hear it, she could see, and she did not reproach him when he came closer to lay eyes upon his sons. "They are beautiful," he said, nuzzling her.

A rough leonine purr worked its way past the lump in her throat. "They are sleeping," she gently warned him. If he wished to stay then he must not wake them.

Ahadi smiled, truly smiled for the first time that night, and licked her on the cheek. "I will tell them," he said, and turned to leave. Uru watched, her thoughts flicking back and forth like night insects. She should have told him. Ah, but Ahadi did not know the ways of the Four like his queen did, and how could he understand what Uru had heard? A voice heard in the weariness of childbirth, doubtless, but Uru knew much better. There were lionesses in the pride who knew something of Them, but nothing like their queen. Uru's mother had indeed taught her and her sisters well. Kinyamkela would understand, even when no one else would. Did the Sister, whichever One it may have been, visit upon all three mothers this night? Naima was dead and so were all but one of her litter; Uru had heard the Voice of a Goddess; and Kinyamkela fostered Naima's last cub, but had the Goddess had a paw in that? That was foolishness. All Four had a Paw in all things. But Who among Them had latched Her Claws in this?

Uru laid her head upon her paws. She must talk to Kinyamkela when she got the chance. And she must go to that lake which none but she knew of. There she could find answers in the peace that the waters provided.

----------

It had not occurred to Uru that she had fallen asleep at all that night, but it seemed like only a moment from when she had placed her chin on her paws to the dawn startling her with its brilliance. She raised her head, staring out from the cave as the red disk of the sun rose from the savanna, shimmering as it shook itself awake. Uru inhaled deeply of the morning air. How good it felt to be alive with warm light bathing you -- how distant the fears of a night gone by. The thought stole the heat from her fur and she shivered despite herself. Which of the Four had it been?

A gentle kneading at her belly told her that at least one of her sons w as awake. Her eyes rested upon the two infants: her little Taka was nursing; his brother still treaded along dream trails. His paws twitched. She smiled and, for the moment, forgot the sense of dread that had been haunting her since the Voice had spoken.

The sun continued to rise as Uru lay in repose with her sons. She refused to let her mind wander back to the paths it had walked the night before. Too long she had dwelled upon it, and it would do her no kindness to wrack her spirit more with trying to figure out Who had spoken. All that she needed to know was that it was One of the Four, and that was enough. For the sake of her children, however, she had to know why the events of the night had played out as they had. There was no possibility, in Uru's mind, that what had transpired was mere coincidence -- there had to be a purpose for Naima's stillborn cubs and her own death, as well as a correlation between that and the Voice that Uru had heard.

She needed to speak her thoughts aloud, yet there was no one to whom to speak: Kinyamkela was the only obvious choice, and she was, like Uru, hidden amongst the caves of Pride Rock with young, one hers, one Naima's. For the first time, Uru felt the full force of her isolation. Even if she could not tell the others -- they would never understand the gravity of what had happened -- she would still have preferred to have had the company and support that they could have offered her. Here, she was alone, unprotected, and vulnerable. What had possessed her to hide? She, who was royalty, would always be under the scrutiny of the public eye, and so, too, would her cubs. It would have only been right for them to be born before that same eye. Yet the rogue in her drew back and snarled contempt. No, she was true to her nature to come here as she had, and now she must suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.

Uru stood, nudging her children as she did so. As queen she had a duty to her pride and, while she would not let her children be born to a world without privacy, she would not use that as an excuse to show disrespect to the dead. Naima's elegy would be that night and, new mother or no, she was queen and expected to be there. But what to do with the cubs while she was away? It would not be fit to leave them for that long, nor would it be fit to not pay her respects. Uru sighed, her loyalties torn. She had not been much more than Queen to Naima, yet now she regarded the departed lioness as though she were her dearest friend.

Moving to the entrance of the cave, she gazed longingly out at the sun-bathed savanna. _Asubuhi_ had almost passed and the sun sat just barely to the front of Pride Rock. She closed her eyes and let the fierce heat envelop her. It had always surprised her in her youth that the Second of the Four should hold sway over the sun. The great solar disk seemed to her too benign to be associated with that One. But that had been many seasons ago and she had been an ignorant cub questioning her mother's teachings. Saada Imara was a powerful Goddess, perhaps the most powerful of all the Sisters. And, like all Goddesses, She had Her many facets, ranging from Nurturer to Destroyer. If it was She Who had Spoken, then it could still have been a warning, the Goddess telling her to beware. Uru's mother had stressed -- more often than not, by Uru's calculation -- that She was the greatest help one could ask for, yet, as Goddess of Fire, She was fickle and would not always come when called; She came when She Wished it. It was a lesson to never rely upon the Four to get her or her sisters out of trouble; as rogues by blood it was essential that they knew how to take care of themselves.

Feeling the sun beat down on her, Uru accepted what had transpired that night. She would not fear what came, for she knew that, whatever it was, the Four Willed it so -- she had merely been given the opportunity to lessen the blow to herself that must surely come.

"_Ndugu_ _Nne_," she murmured, calling upon the Four. "If you have plans for my little ones, then protect them from harm while I give due tribute to one who is now in Your care. I leave them in Your _takabadhi_; guard them well."

Taking a deep breath, Uru left the cave and headed up the slope towards the precipice of Pride Rock. If not for the tragedy the night before, the pride would have been lounging on the other side of Pride Rock. Today it would be in the main cavern, mourning the passing of a sister and her children. The breeze stirred as Uru ascended the kopje. She stopped and squinted up at the sun. Winds seldom blew, even gently, when it was so high, directly above Pride Rock. Stroking her face, the current of air flowed past her, down the slope, and toward the lair she had left her sons in. The scents of rains, desert heat, nocturnal rhythm, and new-grown grass tickled her nostrils. She smiled knowingly. _Asante sana, Ndugu,_ she responded silently. _Thank you, Sisters. You honor me._ Behind her, her children were safe; ahead, the pride mourned -- she could hear their somber tones echoing within the cavern.

Composing herself, Uru walked up to the cave's mouth and stared in. Already the bodies had been removed, taken out onto the savanna where they could become the grasses that fed the herds and, in their turn, the pride. Sorrow clung to the scene, but she could sense the faintest flickering of hope within their hearts, manifested in Naima's one remaining cub.

"Queen Uru!" one of the lionesses called out in surprise. Uru turned to face the speaker. She had never liked to hear the title of queen upon her pride sisters' lips, but her rogue nature distanced her from them, and she knew that they did not feel themselves to be in a familiar enough position to gain the right to call her solely by name. What little activity that had been going on stopped as the pride drew its collective attention to its queen. The lioness who had spoken came slowly forward. She dipped her head deferentially to Uru. It was Zamani, one of the older lionesses in the pride; she had just attained adulthood when Uru was still a cub and had, when it became known that Uru was expecting, been quite adamant about playing midwife to the queen. It had taken all of Uru's authority to convince her otherwise. "What are you doing away from your sons?" Fear for their safety reflected clearly in her ochre eyes. That would be all they needed: to have something dire happen to her sons. Truly it would be the final blow for the pride.

Uru took a step within the cavern, entering into the cooler shadows there. "I came to do my royal duty," she said, addressing the pride as much as she did Zamani. She looked around, noticing for the first time that her mate was not present. "Where is King Ahadi?" They were so formal with her that always she felt compelled to do away with any pretense of familiarity, much as she despised the charade and knew that it would only prolong itself if she didn't try to treat them more like the sisters that they should have been. And yet, if she tried to act as though they were more than a queen and her subjects, they would not reciprocate, but watch her with a wary eye instead. What they had set up now was a tenuous arrangement at best, but it was still better than some of the alternatives.

"He is out patrolling the borders and seeing to the tranquility of the Pride Lands," Zamani answered, padding up behind her.

Yes, Uru thought, he is often to be found doing that. She turned, her gaze sweeping over the assembled lionesses. "Where is the little one?" she asked. _Where is Naima's surviving cub?_

"She is with Kinyamkela," Zamani told her, stopping at a respectful -- and wary, Uru noted -- distance when Uru paused.

_So, it is a daughter then._ "Has she been named?" Uru had no authority in the naming of another's cub -- that right belonged to the mother, not to the queen. With Naima dead, if the cub had no name before her passing, then the task fell to Kinyamkela as her foster mother.

Zamani shook her head. "Not when last I saw her," she said. Kinyamkela would name her, then. Uru turned to go, scanning the pride as she went. They had lost so much in so little time, and now their rays of hope, the cubs, were stashed away with their rogue-born mothers. Grief could twist quite easily into hate and Uru had no intention of alienating her pride. When they had mourned Naima and the cubs in due time, she would have her own children presented to the kingdom, so that joy might assuage the pain. "Do you return to your sons now?" Zamani asked as Uru reached the entrance.

Uru paused. She should go to speak with Kinyamkela, if only to find out how she, her cub, and her adopted daughter were doing. Yet there was an undertone to Zamani's words, telling her that she should not have left the princes alone for so long. Uru relented. "Yes," she responded, "I do."

Zamani nodded approvingly, and Uru headed back down the path to her lair. If she chose to sidetrack to Kinyamkela's den, only the two of them and the Four would know that she had. But she had told Zamani, and the rest of the pride with her, that she was returning to her sons, and so she would. _The Four know that they do not trust me as they should their queen._ She sighed. For all her attempts she was still seen as other among them -- she was Ahadi's mate and was accepted by virtue of that fact alone. It had been a relief for her that Kinyamkela had chosen to stay in the Pride Lands with her, especially once her -- their -- mother had died. Only the Four knew what would have happened had she not had the luxury of that one solid friendship.

The trail wound down to flat earth; a simple sidestep would lead her towards Kinyamkela. Her paws stayed on her chosen path, resolutely keeping to her word. It would not do to leave her cubs forever, and even with the guardianship of the Four, they would be hungry and wanting their mother's attention. There would be no other visits this day, save for that appearance at Naima's elegy which she had pledged to make. And to keep that oath she must see to it that her children were fit to be left in the Goddesses' care again. They must be fed and groomed. They must have a mother against whose belly they could rest.

At the cave's entrance, she felt the soothing brush of Their passing, returning her cubs, for the time being, to her care. "Thank you, Sisters," Uru breathed into the wind as it swirled softly past her . She stood for but a moment more at the edge of shadow before going to her little ones. They snuggled against her, searching for a place to suckle, as she lay down next to them. They were hungry, as she had guessed. She licked each in turn, convincing herself that no harm had come to them by her absence. Safe and secure at their mother's side, they alternately ate and slept as Uru filled the cavern with a maternal purr. And the sun sank closer to the far horizon.

----------

"Uru?" The question forced her to blink back to reality, returning from the blissful lands of maternal peace. She looked up to see Ahadi standing framed in the entranceway. Mauve streaked the eastern sky behind him -- _magharibi_ had come.

"Yes?" she asked despite being able to guess at what he had come for. Elegies were always held near to sunset or moonrise -- either slightly before, slightly after, or some time between the two. Uru pulled her paws underneath her, readying herself for Ahadi to tell her that Naima's would be starting soon.

"I was told that you left the cave today," he said instead, surprising her.

She eased back, loosing her tensed muscles. "That is true," she replied carefully. With all the tragedy that had haunted Pride Rock as of late, it would come as no shock to her if Ahadi became angry with her for her absence. "I wanted to know how the others are coping with the deaths."

"They are coping," he told her curtly. Oh yes, he was not pleased about her leaving their sons alone. He sighed, shaking his head -- an attempt to calm his temper; Uru had seen it before on separate occasions. She had never thought that he would ever have reason to use it in her presence, least of all because of her actions.

"Our sons are fine," she said softly, guiding him along away from the frustration he doubtless felt towards her at the moment. "See? They sleep soundly by their mother's side." He looked up, the truth of her words reflecting keenly in his eyes. Had they been anything but fine, the stress of it all could have manifested itself in ways that both king and queen would have regretted. Uru suppressed a shudder. She had only heard tales of her mate's wrath, it being such a rare thing to begin with, and never, thankfully, having experienced it herself. It was one of the things about him that had drawn her to him: his ability to remain calm and rational during trying events.

"They will remain safe here, with their mother to protect them," he said, not quite focusing on either her or the cubs. _Does a Sister Speak to him?_ she wondered. No, Ahadi had never had an ear for the Four; he would not have heard One of Them had She Spoken.

"Ahadi?" she asked, hoping for some clue that would clarify his words for her. His eyes lifted to hers, fearful and commanding at the same time. The implication hit her suddenly. She drew herself up, her yellow twin-moon eyes boring into him. "I won't lie here when one of the pride has died. As queen I am expected to be there to give my last regards as much as you are as king." Her body felt rigid to her, too stiff to be her own. All of her nerves were on edge, she realized. Ahadi was king and he could order her to remain here whether she wanted to or not. For all of the power of the Goddesses, the king still held sway over the land and those who dwelled upon it, save perhaps for true priestesses. Uru, for all her lessons and knowledge, was no priestess. She braced herself for the blow that would tell her that she was to stay where she was.

"Uru, _mpenzi_," he said, his voice unexpectedly tender, "you do Naima no injustice by not attending." She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "She died to bring one cub into this world; she would not want you to place your own cubs in danger for her sake." Uru turned her face away, ashamed of herself. He was right. It would not have done to leave their sons alone again -- the Four Sisters or no, the pride would not understand any more than Ahadi would that they were protected in her absence by Those far greater than she. "They will understand," Ahadi reassured her with a nuzzle, and she was not sure of whom he spoke, the pride sisters or the Four. He glanced outside and she followed his gaze: the sky had darkened into violet and the first stars had begun to shine. Ahadi's lips twitched in what might have been a smile. "The Great Kings beckon," he said, only half to Uru.

She nudged him with her nose. "Not yet, they don't. Not for you," she told him sternly, dread churning in her belly. It frightened her to hear him speak like that. Whether he had intended it to mean anything more than that the night was calling or not, the possibility of him contemplating that it might be his time was enough to make her heart stop.

Ahadi smiled kindly at her. "No," he agreed. "Not for some time, _mpenzi_." He licked her on the cheek, then left her with their sons deep in slumber at her side.

"The Four grant that it won't be for some time yet, _tunu_," she whispered after him. She stared at the cavern entrance for some time following his departure before her eyes wavered to the stars. "And the Four grant you safe journey, Naima, _koma_. _Yahom_." Off in the distance, echoing from off the surrounding rocks, the sound of wailing reached her ears. Uru closed her eyes. There, they were allowed to mourn in public, while she, queen, was forced into solitude. For the briefest moment, bitterness welled in her, though towards who or what she couldn't be sure. Now she understood what would have happened had Kinyamkela not stayed with her: such bitterness would have swallowed her soul and the Four help any who would have been luckless enough to be in her path had it succeeded. She swallowed hard the knot that had lodged itself in her throat, a tear sliding unheeded down her cheek, a testimony to her solitude.

One of the cubs mewled softly at her side. Another tear followed the first as she gazed down at her sons. Better than going to the elegy, better than mourning in private or guarding her cubs from a harm that was dictated in the end by the Goddesses, she knew a way to properly honor Naima, to see that she did not die in vain. She had two sons and Naima's surviving cub was a daughter. Even if she had to brave Ahadi's rare anger -- but why should he be angry when no wrong was wrought? -- Naima's daughter would be the next Queen of Pride Rock. Uru chuckled softly to herself. "Do you know," she asked of her older son, "that your mother has set to betroth you to a lioness whose name she does not even know nor whose face she has yet laid eyes upon?" She chuckled again as Mufasa yawned and stretched, bumping into his younger brother. Taka sneezed at the intrusion, rolling over and away from his littermate. Their quiet as they slid back beneath the surface and into the watery world of dreams made clear the sounds of the pride crying for Naima and her lost young. Uru closed her ears to the haunting sounds, focusing instead on her sons, smiling at them as only a mother can. Yet it was true that she did not know the name of Naima's daughter. Ahadi would not let her leave their sons unattended by a mortal lioness -- the Four were more than enough for Uru's nerves but nowhere near enough for his or anyone else's, save Kinyamkela's -- so asking Kinyamkela directly was about as likely as one of the pride sisters sprouting wings. No, she would have to rely upon others to bring her news and any gossip worth noting about the cub. And the only other who would -- who could -- come to relay such news was Ahadi himself. Uru sighed, her ears catching again the wailing from outside. Her mate was constantly busy with the pressures of ruling a kingdom; information would be scarce unless asked for specifically. But, so long as she did not pester anyone for the cub's name, no one would guess why she wished to know it. For reasons she could not define, she wanted the betrothal to remain a secret, if only to give the pride the proper time to grieve.

Silence made Uru pause in her thoughts, the cries of the pride no longer reaching her ears. Had her mind been wandering so long? She sighed again. She wanted to talk to Ahadi, to ask him about Naima's daughter, but she knew that he had said his "good nights" to her before the elegy and would not come again until the dawn, or later, if duty to the kingdom demanded it. Always he was busy. Only the Four knew how he would ever find enough time for his sons if his schedule remained as it was. Closing her eyes, Uru left the thought there -- time and the Four would dictate how that went.

----------

"Rise and shine, sleepy-head," a familiar voice chimed to Uru, rousing her with a start from a restful sleep. She blinked, clearing her eyes and focusing on the grinning lioness lying stretched out in front of her. Two indistinguishable blurs -- one light, one dark -- nestled close against her pale abdomen. Uru blinked again and they materialized into two cubs that weren't the little princes. She stared dumbly at them. The lioness swatted her playfully. "What's the matter, Uru? You look as if you haven't seen a cub before in your life, and yet you have two of your own."

"Kinyamkela!" Uru exclaimed, too perplexed by her presence to do much more than feign indignation. "What are you doing here? And with your little ones!" Indeed, what was she doing there? Kinyamkela had hid herself as surely as Uru had, and with two cubs a move to another den site would require leaving one of them behind. The pride simply would not have allowed it had it known or found out; and the risk of it finding out would be too great to begin with.

Her friend shrugged. "The others seem to think it best that we set up a communal nursery." She grimaced, but Uru just continued to stare. "Everything is communal with them." Snorting in mock derision -- or with perhaps a hint of the real thing -- she continued, "I guess they thought they'd have better luck moving me to you. They really don't want us up and about, do they?"

"No," Uru said, still in a daze at Kinyamkela's presence. "No, I suppose not." She looked again at the two cubs at her friend's belly: one was hers, the other Naima's. It was not difficult to guess who was whose. One cub was pale beige -- or would be once it had outgrown its spots -- like Kinyamkela, and Uru would bet that it would have her same striking teal eyes. The other cub was darker: a rich brown that probably wouldn't get much lighter, even once the spots had vanished. This one, Uru felt certain, was Naima's daughter and the cub destined to become Queen after her. Naima, too, had had a brown coat -- in fact, most of the pride did, or some similar variation upon the shade. There were, excluding the cubs, only three exceptions to that rule who came immediately to mind: Ahadi, Kinyamkela, and the queen herself. Ahadi's yellowed bronze was a trait of the royal line, something that Mufasa had rightly inherited. Kinyamkela's sun-gilded straw was a mark of her rogue heritage as much as Uru's burnished amber, which Taka was sure to possess under his own infant spots. "Your cubs," Uru said, trying to hide her mingled enthusiasm and disappointment that Kinyamkela was there denning with her. Enthusiasm because it meant that all of Uru's questions could be answered without having to go through anyone else: disappointment that the pride should feel the need to isolate them together. _Do they trust us that little because of our rogue blood, or is this just a reaction to Naima's death?_

Kinyamkela looked down at the two cubs curled at her side. "Yes," she agreed, smiling proudly at them. "My cubs. My daughters, too." She looked up at Uru inquisitively, the bare beginnings of an idea etching its way across her features.

"I have thought about it already," Uru told her flatly. "I did not know you had two daughters, though; just the one." She motioned slightly towards Naima's daughter. Kinyamkela followed the gesture.

"Yes," she said. "I was told while moving them here that you had come up to the main cavern." Uru felt her friend's curiosity and concern more than she actually saw it. "What, by the Four, possessed you to do that?"

"Are you going to reprimand me, too?" Uru snapped. She had had enough of this banter; between the pride's disapproving looks and Ahadi's decree last night, the Four knew she did not need Kinyamkela telling her what a fool they believed her to have been as well.

Kinyamkela apparently took the hint. Reclining, half-closing her eyes, she said, "No, but you and I both know Who walked that night."

Uru frowned. "Yes, I do, and I know that the Full Four watched my cubs for me while I was away that short while. They were safe; I'd stake my life -- now and any others the Four may grant me -- on it.

Her friend looked at her, ears perked, intrigued. "All Four?" She leaned forward. "That, _ndugu_, is a feat. What interest do They have in us that All would come to watch two cubs, be them princes or not?"

Uru shook her head. "I don't know, and you have no idea how badly I wish I do." She sighed. There was something that must be told, that must be removed from off Uru's chest, and no time was more ripe than this. "I heard One of Them that night," she said quietly, staring at her paws. Beside her, Kinyamkela shuffled upright.

"Which One?" she asked, breathless.

Uru's eyes darted quickly to catch the other lioness in her field of vision. Kinyamkela was listening intently, fear tingeing her scent. The only possible One among the Four was the Second, Saada Imara, Whose coming and going could be either blessing or curse. Why bother asking when that was the truth of the matter? Uru sighed, "You know Which One."

Silently, Kinyamkela nodded her acknowledgment. There was no need to ask. "I'd say I'm sorry," she said at length, "but I'm not so sure I should be." _Either blessing or curse...._ Uru didn't know whether she was glad or not that she had finally told someone -- if anything, it just seemed to dig up all of her old worries anew. Neither spoke for what felt like eons while Uru reassured herself feverishly -- silently -- that the Goddess did not always cause harm and that it stood to reason that She was actually helping her.

A cub mewed and both lionesses turned to their respective children. "One of mine," Kinyamkela grinned, nudging the pale cub. It squirmed against the contact of the great pink nose, and Uru found herself grinning, too, despite herself.

"Have you named them?" she asked her friend. Now felt right to bridge the subject, and possibly other related ones as well.

Giving her daughter a once-over grooming, Kinyamkela said, "Yes, I have, and this little monster" -- she scooped the pale cub to her -- "is Sarafina." She considered her daughter for a moment, then nosed her back to a spot at her breast. Sarafina began to suckle almost immediately. Her mother continued, "The others seemed to think that Naima's -- my -- daughter would follow her family shortly. So, her life being such a fleeting thing, I named her Sarabi." Kinyamkela flashed her a mischievous grin. "Mirage." It was just like her to mock them thus.

"She survived, though," Uru noted, studying the young Sarabi. She looked healthy enough and certainly no worse for wear than her foster sister. And, if anything, she looked to be of a stockier build than Sarafina, probably due to their different lineages -- one pride, one rogue.

"That she did," Kinyamkela agreed. "She showed them all."

"Indeed," Uru said, a small, knowing smile on her lips, "and I know how to let her show them still." Kinyamkela peered at her, bewildered. _Does she fear what I may have planned?_ Uru wondered briefly. Fear of the unknown was natural enough, and certainly her friend did not know entirely what she had meant by those words. She smiled broadly at Kinyamkela. "I was thinking of betrothing her to the heir," she said.

Kinyamkela stared at her, speechless. From the way she had mentioned that she had two daughters Uru knew that the thought had occurred to her, but doubted that she had actually expected anything to come of it. But why not? These four were the only cubs in the pride at the moment; it only made sense that, with one as heir and in need of a queen, one of Kinyamkela's daughters -- for indeed they were hers, even if she had not borne both -- should be that queen. "And," Kinyamkela finally managed to squeak out, "which one is the heir?"

Uru nudged her slumbering eldest. He stirred slightly, then settled back to sleep against his mother and his brother. "My Mufasa," she said.

Kinyamkela chuckled fondly. "I remember that name. It was from a story Mother told us, was it not?"

Uru nodded. "Do you recall the story?" she asked. "For the life of me I cannot."

The other lioness shook her head. "Not much," she admitted regretfully. "The hero was great indeed, though...but I do not think it was a happy legend...rather, it was a tragedy...."

Uru tensed at Kinyamkela's tone, the musing having taken on an edge that Uru recognized as prophetic. She licked Mufasa fiercely, her maternal instinct flaring suddenly to savage life. "Well, no tragedy will come to my Mufasa. Not so long as his mother is here."

Kinyamkela stared sadly at her. "I'd watch my words if I were you, Uru. You know the Four could arrange that into truth."

_Taka shari...to defy...to challenge...._ The words swirled in her memory, brushing senses she had forgotten she possessed. Her vision narrowed, black swallowing all but a small claw tip of light. Dust clogged her nose and throat as the black solidified into the walls of the Pride Lands gorge. She could make out no details and it was only a feeling in her gut that told her that she stood staring down its length. A low note, a vibration, ached distantly in her bones, growing steadily stronger, until the very earth shook beneath her paws. Thunder rolled to the flashing strikes of thousands of hooves....

"Uru!" Kinyamkela swatted her, sending the vision away. She started at the calm familiarity of her surroundings. Breathing heavily, she stared fearfully at Kinyamkela. "What did you See?" her friend asked gently, persistently.

"I...I don't know," Uru gasped. "Nor do I wish to!" Even as her memory touched the vision, she felt it reaching out again for her. No no no, she would not go back to that. She shuddered, drawing in on herself. What she had seen was not real and would not -- could not -- happen. But what had she seen? A stampede in the gorge and nothing more, so why did it frighten her so? Why now did she refuse to see the vision out to its conclusion? _I am afraid of what I might see._ The ability to know the future was a priestess's task, not a queen's, and she was no priestess. Her mother might have been at one time, and one of Uru's sisters had gone off to become one herself, but Uru was not of that order. Such visions had been warned against by their mother; they were never to seek them, but rather were to let them come when they would if they were not trained to do otherwise, because that was Seeing through the Goddesses' Eyes and could be, like a visit from Saada Imara, as much blessing as curse. Had her mother been there now, Uru would have found herself reprimanded for forcing the Eyes closed. But Uru did not want to See. _Let the future remain a mystery, for I do not want to live knowing that all will come to naught._ She prayed as though she were alone and Kinyamkela not watching her acutely. She did not want to See...and something shifted in the back of her mind, as if a boulder had fallen to lie barring entrance to a cave. With her mind's eye, Uru examined it, prodded it with a mental paw: the boulder did not budge. She would not See.

"Uru?" uncertainty had crept into Kinyamkela's voice, making it waver as she spoke. Did she fear the vision or what Uru had done? Uru met her gaze and she felt Kinyamkela's eyes probing her. The queen refused to break away. Kinyamkela dropped her eyes first, closing them, shaking her head sadly. "You have made a terrible choice, _ndugu_," she said, "and I only pray that They will grant you the chance to rescind it in due time."

Uru ignored her. She knew what she had done and it was no mistake to her. _Kinyamkela thinks that I have rejected the Four, but, no, I did not do that. I have only kept Them from making me See through Their Eyes._ How could she make Kinyamkela understand? Seeing such had always been hardest for her -- it came naturally to Kinyamkela who, Uru suspected, had she not stayed at Pride Rock, would have joined their littermate in the priestess sisterhood -- and she had shied from it for most of her life. Yet, not until now had she ever felt that she had reason to shut her eyes entirely to it. The mere memory brought the sound of pounding hooves to her ears. She shut it out, physically and mentally, by focusing on her now-nursing cubs. Let the Four have Their Way, for there was no other, but let her have her own hopes live until such time as They saw fit to dash them. Kinyamkela said nothing more to her and Uru could only hope that she had not alienated her by her choice. "I wish not to See," she told her helplessly, praying that she would understand.

Kinyamkela groomed Sarabi, not bothering to look up or even to so much as acknowledge that Uru had spoken. None other in the pride would dare insult her thus. Uru did not care.

"Kinyamkela?" she asked desperately. _Ndugu Nne, don't let her turn from me, too! Please, do not let her turn!_

The other lioness fixed her with unflinching water-blue eyes. "I cannot forgive you that mistake, Highness," she told her flatly, speaking as much like a priestess as an uninitiated could. It was the first time Uru could think of that Kinyamkela had called her by title, and it made her blood run cold. Never again would it be the same between them -- always there would be this. "I thank you for the kindness you have shown my daughter," she continued, so formal and distant that it seared Uru's soul just to hear it and know that it came from her friend's -- her sister's -- lips. A tear slid down her cheek.

"Don't do this, _ndugu_," she pleaded, her voice weak, constricted by her tightened throat. She opened her mouth to say more, but the words would not come. She would that she could heave her heart into mouth so that she might be better able to articulate what anguish she was going through, just how much this desertion -- deserving or not -- could destroy her.

Kinyamkela met her eyes, her own softening, and, gently, licked away a stray tear from Uru's cheek. "_Ndugu,_" she whispered and the fierce devotion in that one word cut into Uru as surely as had the coldness that had fallen mere words earlier from those same lips. "I do not abandon you any more than you do Them, but still I tell you truth when I say that you have made a grievous error.

Uru did not hear her -- did not care that she did not -- burying her head in Kinyamkela's throat. Sobs wracked her as relief washed over her in a flash flood, crashing over everything in its path. She had not been rejected after all. She had not been rejected. The realization pulsed through her steadier than her rapid heart beat, repeating itself over and over in her exhausted brain. She had not been rejected. Fatigue set in as she lay with her head still buried in Kinyamkela's throat, and her sobs quieted to silent tears. She felt rather than heard when Kinyamkela began to purr.

----------

Uru awoke from exhausted slumber to the sound of something dragging across the cavern floor. She raised her head from the ground, aware that Kinyamkela was already awake and had probably never fallen asleep in the first place. Shaking her head to rid herself of the last drowsy vestiges of sleep, Uru searched for the source of the sound. Kinyamkela was just settling down next to her again, a young gazelle dead in her jaws, lying between her front paws. Uru straightened up. "Delivery?" she asked, suspecting that one of the pride sisters had made and brought the kill for them.

Kinyamkela started, probably not expecting her to have woken yet. The other lioness grinned around a mouthful of gazelle neck. She shook her head and released the animal from her grasp. "Nope," she panted. "Caught this one myself."

Uru furrowed her brow. "How...?" she wondered aloud. The eyes and ears of the pride must be everywhere by now, paranoia over the potential loss of anymore cubs having set in full force upon the pride. Surely, Kinyamkela could not have gone hunting unnoticed, no matter how skilled or silent she may be.

"Same way you catch any gazelle," Kinyamkela quipped, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes telling Uru that she had known exactly what she had meant by the question but had decided instead to make a joke of it.

"But, they let you?" Uru tried again, far more articulate this time around and not bothering to specify just who _they_ were. That the pride would let Kinyamkela come and go as she pleased while confining their queen was, in and of itself, not a new concept to Uru -- the Four knew that she was always under an extremely watchful eye. _One of the downsides of being Queen._ Of course, conversely, one of the upsides was that she could order them to leave her be, where as Kinyamkela could not. And then there was always the fact that her children would get the chance to actually know their father. Uru had never met hers and she doubted that many others lacking royal blood could say much more of their own experiences with paternal relationships.

"Why shouldn't they?" Kinyamkela shrugged, placing a paw over the gazelle. "Mothers have to eat, after all, and you're the hunt mistress so they've got to work harder to keep themselves fed, let alone us as well." She bent down and opened the carcass with a swift tearing bite to the abdomen. "Hungry?" Uru's stomach growled in response before Uru could even begin to formulate an answer. Kinyamkela laughed heartily. "I'll take that for a 'yes'," she said, positioning the gazelle so that the both of them could have easy access to all the choicest parts.

Uru put any further questions on hold while she and Kinyamkela ate their fill. Her friend had certainly been right about mothers needing to eat; if they didn't, their milk would suffer for it, and the cubs suffer for that. It was a small gazelle -- really only barely a meal for one lioness -- and, though it served to quiet her gut for the moment, Uru was far from being full. Still, it was undeniably better than nothing. When she finished, Uru reclined to properly groom her face and paws while Kinyamkela grabbed a femur, slender as it was, and began to gnaw on it, working for the marrow within. Uru watched between paw-swipes to her muzzle, washing off the blood. _I am avoiding it,_ Uru realized at last. There was a subject that she had to breach in regards to Kinyamkela hunting. Yes, because her friend was not queen she was not bound as she was to the whims of the pride -- and she had no authority by which to cast those same whims aside. Yet, still, if the pride had seen fit to advise -- even order -- Kinyamkela to den with her, then why would they let her leave her cubs to go hunt when the pride was perfectly capable of doing it? The hunting capacity of the pride was not so badly crippled by her absence as to make it necessary for her and Kinyamkela to provide food for themselves. It simply didn't make sense. Just the other day Uru had practically found herself banned from the main cavern of Pride Rock and an elegy for a pride sister, while today Kinyamkela was free to roam the savanna in order to hunt.

The bone cracked, compelling Uru away from her thoughts. Kinyamkela had succeeded in gaining access to the marrow. Uru watched, her mind going back to the question she had put off so that she could eat properly. She cleared her throat. Kinyamkela twitched an ear, a signal that she had heard and was listening despite still appearing to be completely absorbed in the bone. "They do not care if you risk injury hunting, but I can barely be trusted to leave this cavern," Uru did not bother posing it as a question; she was laying the matter down before them as surely as Kinyamkela had the gazelle. Her tone, however, had more bitter edge to it than Uru had both intended and expected.

Kinyamkela raised an eyebrow, looking up at her from over the ruins of the gazelle femur. "You are queen," she pointed out simply.

"Yes" Uru agreed, not caring now that her voice was harsh, "I am queen and yet they trust me as well as they would a member of Mvunja's pride." More than once Uru had heard Ahadi mention that neighboring king -- there was some border dispute between the two, both claiming a sliver of land and neither being able to evict the other from it definitively. The animosity went back a ways, or so Uru understood it, to before even Mohatu's time. It was, in essence, a pridal war fought with scent markers and egos more than claws and teeth.

"If they trusted you that little" -- Kinyamkela balanced the bone absently between her paws, the exposed hollow where the marrow once was jutting up as if expecting to be chewed upon again -- "then you would be dead by now." Uru winced. That was true: she would have been killed -- there was no love lost between the two prides -- but it would have been a physical death. What they were doing now was far worse. She chose not to voice the thought, since it would serve nothing. At this point all she wanted to know was why Kinyamkela was given so much freedom while she herself was denied so basic a thing. Her friend sighed."_Ndugu,_" she said, pushing the bone aside altogether, "I have not been entirely truthful with you." Uru turned to her, puzzled. It had never occurred to her that Kinyamkela might deceive her -- they were as much sisters as two lionesses could be without being related by blood and, despite that, were probably more like sisters than some lionesses who had that blood-closeness. "Ahadi bid me come here so that you would have no need to go far from your sons. He worries about you and them, and so does everyone else. Naima's death hangs all too heavily in our minds and, while, by comparison, myself and my daughters are unimportant, you and your sons are irreplaceable." Uru opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off. She wanted to say how Kinyamkela and her daughters were important -- equally important -- to her. Kinyamkela continued, "I do not see the kindness in this confinement, but I do see the wisdom. Your mate knows you value your freedom, Uru, but he also knows that the pride cannot stand to loose a member of the royal family. Give them time. They'll come around."

Lowering her eyes, Uru relented. So, that was it: fear for her safety and that of the two princes. Sometimes it seemed to her that overprotection was as harmful to its object as no protection. She turned to her sons. A tiny part of her told her that, if not for them, she could come and go as she pleased, she could hunt whenever and wherever she chose, she could travel to the far reaches of the Pride Lands and beyond if she wanted, and she could visit the lake near the border that only she knew of if she so desired. It told her that two cubs were small compensation for the freedom she had lost and that there was a way to regain that which was rightfully hers. She smothered that part of her which whispered such evil things to her heart. These cubs beside her were innocents -- it was not their choice to be born to a queen on the same night that one of the pride died in child birth. It was the Will of the Four and so she must accept that, for if there were any with whom to be angry, it was Them. But what did mortals know of Their design? The Circle of Life did not so much turn as it did spiral, ever creating itself anew, different with every generation. _Otherwise, forever would the future be doomed to repeat the past and we would learn nothing as we lived. The past would be our future and the present nothing but a wall of thorns preventing us from stepping off the path to follow our own way. The Circle is the path of our lives unwinding before us, and ever does it swing round in balanced destruction and creation, death countered ever with life, always in balanced measure. Though the paths of our ancestors may serve as guide, those of our family parallel or diverge from our own, and those of our friends may tread for time -- both long and short -- along beside us, none of them tell us that we must follow always their footsteps any more than we tell them that they must follow ours._

"Well, hello there, little one," Kinyamkela cooed, and Uru turned from her thoughts to see just who it was that her friend was talking to. Taka had awaken, perhaps disturbed by the unfamiliar smell of a kill, and was crawling his way over to investigate the other lioness, or perhaps even the other infants.

Uru smiled and scooped him back to her. "You, my little prince," she scolded tenderly, "are too young to be exploring. Back to your brother with you." He mewed as he found himself once again against his older sibling, who was still napping quietly. Uru groomed them both and Taka settled down.

"That one," Kinyamkela chuckled, "promises to be a pawful, I think." She paused, tilting her head slightly to one side, examining Taka critically. Uru felt herself tense up, the fur on her nape rising, worrying if her friend would offer prophecy or Sight. If so, she did not want to hear it, same as she had not wanted to See it. "I don't believe you introduced us," Kinyamkela said at last.

It was all Uru could do to keep from exhaling too conspicuously. Shaking her head, she said, "No, I don't believe I did. That little 'pawful,' as you put it, is Taka."

"Taka?" Kinyamkela looked at her in surprise, almost concern. "Such an odd name," she said, eyeing Uru as if she had sprouted a springbok's horns.

"I don't think so," Uru said, intent upon defending her choice. If she would not let Ahadi change her mind, as she had decided when she named her youngest son, then she would not let Kinyamkela, either.

"You don't? But, it means --" Kinyamkela broke herself off, apparently unable to say what she wanted to. What she had intended to say was a mystery to Uru.

Uru stared at her. "It means 'to wish' and 'to ask.' I see nothing odd about that."

"Oh...oh!" her friend sighed, shaking her head, a relieved and faintly embarrassed smile on her lips. "I thought you meant --" She broke off into laughter for a joke that Uru had clearly missed, the queen just staring at her in utter confusion. Kinyamkela forced herself to quiet her laughing. "Never mind what I thought," she said, rubbing at her eye with a paw. She had been laughing hard enough to cry, Uru realized. What, by the Four, had been so funny? "It is a fine name," Kinyamkela smiled, calm at last. "But, tell me, does Ahadi know that he has missed out on all the fun of stressing over the naming of cubs?"

Uru, deciding it best not to find out whatever it was that Kinyamkela had found so amusing -- she had a strange sense of humor, at times, to begin with -- shook her head. "No, and I think all the choice he gets now is agreeing with me." She flashed a teasing smile at her friend.

Kinyamkela nodded, sharing her smile and clearly enjoying the light-hearted air. Uru, too, was feeling better than she had in what felt like eons, even when it had probably not been more than a day or two. It was as if they two were adolescents again, making jokes at the expense of the pride lionesses -- considering themselves to be so much better than them because of their rogue heritage. Uru knew far better now: pride and rogue were best evaluated on an individual basis. They were all children under the Four, and, thus, one and the same. Uru stretched, infused with a sense of freedom and peace she had thought denied to her since word had reached her of Naima's death. Whatever appeared upon her unwinding path, or those of her two sons, in this moment, she felt ready for it.

   [1]: mailto:SnowySMT@aol.com



	2. Lady of the Lake: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The moon that had waxed near full the night of Naima's death -- an evil omen, that time in the moon's cycle, for it was when the moon was full that the pride refused to hunt by night, the kill often missed and precious energy wasted -- that moon had waned back to a dark orb in the sky -- a time when the Third, Hawara Kwa Na Mwezi, granted the pride darkness so that the hunt might be successful. Uru stood in the entrance to the cave where she had given birth -- where she had nearly been prisoner since that birth had it not been for Kinyamkela -- and watched as the virgin moon slipped closer to the horizon. It would not be long before the sun rose, first bathing the clouds that streaked the sky with the promise of the _masika_, and then touching the very peak of Pride Rock, always the first piece of land to greet the morning sun. Ahadi would be along soon to help her carry their sons to the promontory before that moment. Behind her, the cave was empty, save for the princes. Kinyamkela had, with the assistance of one of the pride sisters -- Zamani, Uru believed, that lioness having taken a special interest in the well-being of Naima's blood-daughter -- had taken her cubs up to the main cavern, leaving the royal family alone. Though all four young cubs' eyes had opened, each with a promise of what color those eyes would be past the infant blue, it was still, in truth, too early to have them incorporated into the pride. Even when the mother had agreed to the midwifery of her sisters, the cubs were kept within one cave or another, not yet being old enough to have free roam of Pride Rock; certainly they were left behind, usually with their mother though sometimes left alone altogether, when the pride chose to hunt. Both Uru and Kinyamkela had opted out of the idea of a communal birth and, if not for the fact that one of them had given birth to the heir, they would still be secreted away in a cave on Pride Rock, or even off it, until the moon had swung round to full and back to this pure dark again. But royal birth changed the inherent rules of the game and now the cubs would be out in the open once before their age would otherwise dictate.

Today, before the dawn, king and queen would take their children to the promontory so that all the Pride Lands might see and know that the heir is born and that the Four give blessing. Once, so Uru had been told, the ceremony had incorporated a shaman baboon to present the cubs to the kingdom. That had been long ago, and not even Mohatu's grandfather had been presented thus. Some kingdoms still had a shaman to perform the task, but it was, by the accounts of Uru's mother, who had traveled long before settling at last in the Pride Lands, a dying practice. Uru had never met a baboon who knew enough in the mystic arts to be ranked as shaman, and, she suspected, she probably never would, whether or not her mother's words were true. The baboon troop in the Pride Lands simply lacked the knowledge as a collective whole to produce a shaman; so any such baboon would have to come from another troop, and it was debatable as to whether or not said resident troop would grant them passage, let alone leave to stay and practice. True that the king could intercede if he so chose, but it would still largely be a matter between baboons, not king and subjects. Uru had not always been fond of the primates, finding them short-tempered and abusive even when you were just passing through without the slightest intent of hunting them. The shamans, though, were doubtless more placid than their less-educated counterparts; that at least seemed to be the truth where leonines were concerned: a priestess was always more serene and virtually without prejudice when compared to a regular pride sister. That was a matter of discipline, upbringing, and training, Uru knew -- the path one tread to become a priestess was not an easy one and she could only guess how her sister had faired on the journey.

The lack of a shaman did nothing to harm the cubs or how their future subjects perceived them -- indeed, with so many seasons having passed since last the Pride Lands' heir had been presented thus, only the old matriarch elephants could probably remember a time when the successor had been held aloft. As it was now, the kingdom did not actually see the cubs, since only a shaman or priestess could rightly raise them to the heavens for all, mortal and divine, to see, but saw instead the approval of the Four as signified by a lone beam of sunlight illuminating the royal family. Uru marked the faint graying of the sky where the sun would awake; Ahadi would be just leaving the main cavern. While the shamans were few and far between, especially in the Pride Lands, the priestesses were truly rare. It was not for lack of initiates, as they had plenty -- all prides and rogues could send daughters to the jungle dwelling place of the priestess sisterhood -- but rather that they were a secretive order and did not make public appearances unless they were deemed to be necessary under the Four. One did not see just any cub deigned with the presence of a _mwana_ _staarabu _-- that was reserved for those who they themselves had plans for. The absence of a priestess was, Uru thought, recalling the Voice she had Heard the night that had left Sarabi orphaned and alone, a relief since it meant that whatever the Four had in mind for her sons was not, perhaps, as grand or dire as she had feared.

Tarnished gold, dually dulled and accented by the fading light of the stars, caught the corner of her eye and Uru turned to see Ahadi walking the trail towards her. There was no verbal greeting as their gazes met -- this was a silent affair, the closest either could expect to come to the stringent codes of shaman or, especially, of priestess. Uru waited at her post, framed by the solid blackness of the cave behind her, well aware that her burnished coat caught and held the dying night as surely as Ahadi's did. He stopped in front of her and her nose bumped his in ritual greeting -- it was a formal gesture, the more common and casual head and side rubs used on almost all other occasions when pridemates met; only strangers greeted first by touching noses, strangers and those, like Uru and Ahadi, who were participants in a ceremony. Maintaining her silence, and he maintaining his, Uru led her mate to where their sons lay peering drowsily up at them. Ahadi smiled at her, then reached down and lifted Mufasa by the scruff. That parent who possessed the royal strain always carried the heir -- Ahadi had been born to the throne, Uru had not, but if it had been the other way around, it would have been Uru who carried Mufasa. As it was, Uru returned her mate's smile, then picked up Taka to follow at his side and a pace behind. Several times since they had been born, Uru had had reason to pick her sons up by their napes and it still hadn't ceased to surprise -- or perhaps it was to disturb -- her just how much of a weight difference there was between the two. Where Mufasa was a robust cub, looking almost another half-cycle of the moon older than he was, Taka was unquestionably the runt of the litter, seeming younger than he was. Without it ever being spoken, Uru had known that those who had seen him -- Ahadi, Kinyamkela, and Zamani when she had come to help Kinyamkela move to the main cavern this early morn -- thought it possible that he would not be strong enough to survive this long, or much longer. Yet, as Sarabi had, Taka, too, proved them wrong and Uru felt certain in a way that she could not explain that he would live longer still. There was, scratching from behind the boulder, a whispering of Sight, which she strove desperately to ignore, that murmured to her that he would outlive his elder brother by several turns of the seasons. Something in its persistence to tell her made her fur stand on end.

The path sloped upward, and Uru could see the far mountains silhouetted against the pale gray sky. When the great glowing disk rose, the kingdom would assemble at the base of Pride Rock to know that there was an heir and that he was accepted by the Four. Rimming the trail near the promontory, spread out around the entrance of the main cavern, the lionesses of the pride watched as king, queen, and princes made their way to where the kopje jutted out over the plains. Many of the pride sisters were seeing the heir and his brother for the first time, and the look of wonder on faces young and old was enough to make Uru smile from around her younger son's nape. Lying in the cave's mouth, Kinyamkela silently nursed her daughters. The quiet pride on her friend's face was all Uru needed to know that, had it been permissible, she would have dashed up to her in congratulations. There were others in the pride who would have done the same, but they would have been more intent upon the princes than upon the queen.

Out in the open, just above where the promontory cleared the rest of Pride Rock, Uru lay down, placing Taka between her forepaws. Gently, she nudged him to one side, making room for Mufasa as he, too, was placed between her paws. Ahadi nuzzled her briefly before striding confidently up to the cliff's edge to survey his kingdom. Uru watched in awe, seeing him for what felt like the first time -- as the others saw him, as the undisputed king of this land -- witnessing in him the appearance of a detached sense of majesty, an aloofness that she had not known him to be capable of. She swallowed, suddenly insecure in the presence of this near stranger.

The sky shifted from grayscale to full color as the clouds swirled magenta, tangerine, and blinding gold. Uru lifted her muzzle, mesmerized by the kaleidoscope wheeling above her head. _By the Four..._and her eyes pricked with tears. Behind her, though she could not see it, Pride Rock caught the light from a sun that still appeared to sleep, bathing the kopje in a warm ruddy glow. The sunlight advanced down the face of the peak, until, at long last, the sun broke free of the horizon. Light burst forth, Ahadi suddenly engulfed by the blazing disk; Uru was blinded by the brilliance, her mate taking on the semblance of the star she hoped he would one day become. She closed her eyes, feeling rather than seeing the glow of the sun as it cleared the bonds of earth, and her heart sang to a tune she could not name; it was a cry to celebration -- to live -- and all animals within its reach obeyed. None could see that Uru's eyes were closed -- her back to the pride and her mate's back to her -- and she would have paid them no heed if any could. Her breath had caught in her throat and her heart beat tempo to that song her spirit knew even when her mind did not.

A sound reached her external ears and she reluctantly pulled herself away from this inner sanctuary she had found. Off in the distance, the call had been answered, and a dust cloud rose over the savanna from the tramp of thousands of paws, hooves, and feet. As the dust drifted upward, it was thrust back to earth under the weight of a flock of birds equal only to the herd marching towards Pride Rock. Never in her life -- and she doubted ever that she would again -- had Uru seen a sight such as this: all manner of life in the Pride Lands were travelling as one, without so much as a sideways glance from predator to easy prey. Even at her height above the surrounding plain, she could feel the steady earthen thunder rumble through the rock beneath her, and the wind blew from the flapping of so many wings. Uru closed her eyes again, breathing deeply of the life of the Pride Lands that thrummed around her. _All these gathered here to pay homage to my sons...._ The notion was staggering unto itself, but was made even more so by its truth. She sighed, reopening her eyes as Ahadi turned and strode back to her and their sons.

He stopped at her side, nuzzling her again. She purred; even had they been allowed to speak, words would have been useless for what she wanted to tell him. How could she possibly convey that jubilation of the soul that had sung so purely to her? It was beyond her -- beyond all of them -- and she could only pray that he had felt it, too. An answering purr, rougher and deeper than her own -- she had heard his only seldom -- and she knew that he had. Above them, the clouds drew aside and sunlight streamed down on them, forming a churning circle around the royal family. The cubs stirred, perhaps aware of what was happening, perhaps only reacting to the sudden change in light. They blinked, heads tilted, gazing skyward, fascinated by the movements of the clouds. Uru smiled and she, too, lifted her head to watch the clouds: they flowed like water, a river in the air, breaking around that point which shown pure rippled sunlight down on her and her family. Behind them, the pride was silent, heads bowed; below, the savanna had first erupted into a cacophony of sound, then succumbed to an equally loud silence, all kneeling before their future king.

The sunlight faded, the lone beam dissolving into many, and again the herd beneath Pride Rock gave voice. Ahadi rose, aiming once more for the edge of the promontory. At his appearance, the din grew quiet. Uru watched, enraptured. These celebrations happened only once a generation; how could so many who had never experienced one before this know what to do? _Ah, but the Four keep watch and all know in their hearts -- their souls -- what is expected when in the Presence of the Sisters._ A roar -- Ahadi's -- sliced through the air, carrying farther in the silence than it would have at any other time. The circles of sound were only beginning to dissolve when the pride answered. From where she lay, Uru joined them, and the sensation of being surrounded was exhilarating, as much so as when the sun had risen. There was reason why prides often settled their disputes with a show of vocal force instead of blows, and this, indeed, was it; who could deny that the pride at full roar was something to behold? Ahadi roared again, this time not for the pride, but for the assembled masses beneath him, and they answered as surely as had the lionesses. Uru knew that, as much as the sight of all those animals together had been a rarity, so too was the sound of them all paying tribute to their ruler at once, side by side, as one.

Ahadi came back to her, leaving the peak behind; below, the denizens of the Pride Lands began to disperse, aiming for whatever it was that they would do for the remainder of the day -- some gossip, others graze, and still others return to the hunts that had been postponed. "My queen," he said, rubbing his forehead against hers, the hairs of his mane tickling her ear so it twitched involuntarily.

"My king," she responded, returning the rub. Their sons watched, their wide eyes curious. This had to be so foreign to them, having only known the tranquil, dark world of the birth den up until now -- the sudden brightness of day was a shock read easily in those infant blue eyes. They would not remain infant blue for long, though, and Uru could already see the trace beginnings of their eyes' true colors: Mufasa would have his father's deep amber, a color common in the pride -- Uru could guess that Sarabi's eyes would be much the same shade -- while Taka's eyes would be such a hue as Uru had only heard of from her mother -- a bright chartreuse unlike anything the pride had seen in generations. Even though Sarafina's eyes would clearly be green like her mother's, they were not the same shade as Taka's, Sarafina's venturing more towards the blue side than the yellow, and, as such, not quite so rare for the pride, they having already seen Kinyamkela's eyes.

Ahadi licked the top of her head, then looked to the pride, a silent signal that all those who wished to see the princes were at leisure to do so. Uru hid her disappointed sigh -- she had hoped to get more private time than this with her family before the pride descended upon them. She stifled a laugh. _By the Four, I make them out to be more like vultures than lions._

One by one the lionesses came, led, as Uru had suspected, by Zamani. Even though she had never held any position of notable rank -- she had not been a queen by any stretch and her hunting skills did not place her in the upper tier with Uru and Kinyamkela -- Zamani was a well respected member of the pride, most probably because of her age and forceful will. She was older than Uru by at least two cycles of the seasons -- Uru remembered the cubhood days in which she'd tried to entice the older lioness, just then reaching adulthood, to games, and got swatted for her trouble -- but was not yet a venerable elder in the pride; there were lionesses of greater age than her, besides. Had one of those older lionesses wished to force her way in front of her, they well could have, but then Zamani was stubborn and, despite not being of royal birth, used to getting her way. She was, so Uru had heard, also a skilled midwife when she was allowed to be -- Uru's adamant refusal of her help had been a blow to the other lioness's ego and, had Uru not been who she was, she felt certain that she would have wound up being forced into a communal birth, if only because of some guilt trip Zamani would have sent her on. Uru suspected, and Kinyamkela joked, that the pride was deferential to Zamani because they did not know how else to deal with her, though both rogue-born lionesses could suggest plenty of different ways, not all of them courteous or befitting of their rank.

King and Queen exchanged pleasantries with the lionesses, each in their turn, often finding themselves repeating what they had already said to some earlier lioness. Yes, it had been a fine day for the presentation of the princes. No, things could not have gone better. Yes, they are inquisitive cubs. Yes, Mufasa takes after his father and Taka after his mother. And, yes, by the Four, they are healthy. Uru forced her claws to remain sheathed so that she would not end up drumming them upon the rock. The repetition was trying her patience, and the fawning and baby talk the lionesses aimed at the princes was enough to make her ill by the second or third well-wisher. Where was Kinyamkela? If there was anyone left in the pride who she could hold an intellectual conversation with at the moment, it was her. Uru unobtrusively scanned the crowd of lionesses, not wishing to draw attention to herself or her desire for this to be over and done with as soon as possible so she could retreat to what little remained of her maternal sanctuary amongst the caverns of Pride Rock. Kinyamkela had not moved, staying with her daughters curled at her belly. Some of the pride sisters who had already seen the princes crowded around her, discussing, doubtless, all four of the cubs. Uru sighed, licking her sons to hide her disappointment. It was unlikely that Kinyamkela would get a chance to come and talk with her -- she, too, was a mother, and the pride would want to fawn over her children in their turn as well.

With the departure of the last lioness -- much to Uru's relief -- Ahadi leaned down and whispered in her ear, his whiskers tickling her, "Sometimes I wonder about that bunch, too." Uru looked up at him, perplexed. Had he seen just how uncomfortable she had become? And, if he had, had the lionesses, too? He winked at her, and she smiled in return. It didn't matter; the excited babblings of the pride had started to wear on him, too, and that somehow made it more bearable for Uru.

The pride would mill around for a while, gossiping and reminiscing -- the whole of the day was like unto a festival -- and the king and queen would return the cubs to the natal den, to remain there for another moon before being fully incorporated into the pride. The presentation of the heir, though first and foremost a matter of public approval -- and celebration -- by the Four and the kingdom, was also a chance to relieve the curiosity of the pride so that they would not be tempted to disturb the queen while the cubs were young, or so Uru liked to think. Ahadi lifted Mufasa for the trip back to Uru's chosen lair, and Uru did likewise with Taka. From out of the corner of her eye, Uru saw Zamani approach Kinyamkela -- they would follow with Sarabi and Sarafina, staying a respectful distance from the royal family. The two infant females would have, had there been no princes, still been in their den, since their coming to the presentation was solely because all of the pride was expected to be there -- only the youngest of cubs and their mothers were ever excused from it.

A thought occurred to Uru as she stepped lightly down the trail towards her den: she had yet to breach the matter of betrothing Mufasa and Sarabi with her mate. Ahadi had to be told eventually, and it would not do to let it sit unattended to for long. _Perhaps once Kinyamkela and Zamani arrive, so that there will be two to relay the message to the pride._ Zamani would be all too pleased to be privy to such information, and to be a witness to its being propounded to the king. Even if Ahadi were the one to tell the pride -- it was his duty and his right -- the lioness would still consider herself somehow superior to the others. _Just what she needs,_ Uru thought, her sour disposition from the oft recurring questions asserting itself once more, _an ego stroke._ She shook her head, but only slightly, not wanting to disturb Taka. It was not kind of her to think of her pride sister in such terms -- she was midwife to Naima that ill-fated night and had taken great interest in Sarabi and her well being, so much so that Uru felt certain that her conscience was berating her Naima's death. In her own way, Zamani had made herself the orphaned cub's second mother, after Kinyamkela, of course. Regardless of what it would do to her ego, Zamani did have a right to know of the betrothal before the rest of the pride heard, though whether or not she had a right to know at the same time as the king was another matter entirely. Ahadi, Uru knew, would not take offense to it, and might even be grateful for being able to dump the more trite questions upon the lioness, who would relish being the center of attention.

Uru settled herself down in the den, placing Taka at her abdomen; Ahadi lowered Mufasa down next to him. Mother and father shared a quiet smile before Ahadi nuzzled her. It was a farewell gesture, Uru realized, as he turned to leave. "Ahadi," she called after him, and he stopped, one paw raised, at the entrance to the cave. He was puzzled, she could see -- he probably hadn't expected her to ask him to stay longer, what with how eager she had been to end the social aspect of the princes' presentation. "I have a...proposition to discuss with you," she didn't want him to guess her purpose, so she intentionally kept her words and her tone as neutral as possible, even if the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her.

His brow furrowed and, casting a furtive glance up the trail, trotted back over to her. "Kinyamkela and Zamani will be here soon," he said, the implication being that, if it were private, it had best be quick.

"I know," she replied, nuzzling him reassuringly. "I want them to hear. Besides, I've discussed it with Kinyamkela already."

He drew back, blinking in mock hurt. "Before your mate?" he asked, his lips twitching to keep back the smile she saw ready to break there. At this point he could probably guess what it was she wanted to propose -- what else was there besides betrothal that she would tell Kinyamkela about first? She smiled and winked at him, letting him know that she had caught his game and knew how it was played.

A pale shadow stepped into the cave, and Uru turned her attention to her friend as she padded towards some predetermined spot where she would rest. Zamani appeared not more than a few steps behind her. Together they deposited the cubs on the rock floor as Kinyamkela curled around them. Zamani nodded deferentially to Uru and Ahadi before turning to leave.

"Zamani," Uru said. Despite whatever misgivings she had had earlier, Uru did want the other lioness to hear.

She paused in mid-step. "Yes, Your Highness?" she asked, the title again serving to remind Uru just how much distance there was between herself and the rest of the pride, save, of course, for her mate and Kinyamkela.

Uru motioned with her head for Zamani to come back and join them. The other lioness hesitated, then walked warily back to Kinyamkela's side. If Uru hadn't known better, she would have thought the two to be friends. As it was, Kinyamkela was the closest one to Zamani's own rank in the cave, and it was doubtless more comfortable for her to be near her than Uru and her family. "I have an announcement," Uru said, looking first from Zamani to Ahadi to Kinyamkela, who raised her head expectantly. "And I want you all to hear it." There was silence in the cave as all waited on her, even the cubs seemed to be holding their breaths. "I have discussed this at some length with Kinyamkela besides debating it with myself, and I feel that Sarabi should be the next Queen of Pride Rock."

Zamani just blinked, dumbstruck, the mere thought probably beyond her comprehension at the moment. Next to her Kinyamkela nodded, having known about it all along -- Uru had suggested the possibility of the subject being brought up at around this time, she had just never said definitively when. At Uru's side, Ahadi leaned back, and Uru could sense his pleasure, and some relief, too -- this did, after all, give him one less thing to worry about if his queen had already decided upon the betrothal.

Uru waited a moment, giving everyone a chance to regain his or her composure or, as in the case of Zamani, a chance for the information to sink firmly into place. "Is there any reason that we should know of that would discredit her?" she asked, following that formal routine that she hated. Kinyamkela offered nothing, as Uru knew she wouldn't, since they had already raked their brains over this. Zamani, still too stunned to find her voice, just shook her head emphatically.

Ahadi leaned down next to her and whispered into her ear, "Well done, _mpenzi_." So, he gave his consent, too. He spoke her thoughts when he said for them all to hear, "So be it, then. Sarabi will be Queen when my Mufasa is King." For some reason that she could not name, Uru thought that the same formalities that so irked her sounded so proper when used by her mate. _He was born to this,_ she acknowledged, _and I was not._ There was, certainly, some such training involved in becoming the king, and if there was, then Mufasa would be expected to learn it some day, too. Whether or not his brother would was another matter entirely, as Uru was not clear on what was fully expected of the younger brother of the king -- her mother had never told her, nor had Ahadi's for that matter, and it had been time since last there had been a younger sibling to the heir. Why that was, Uru could not say, but it seemed to her that most royal litters consisted of but one cub where there could have been upwards of four. "Come, Zamani," Ahadi said, making once more for the exit. He slowed a step to let her numbed mind process the command. "We have news for the pride." Startled out of her reverie, the other lioness got swiftly to her feet and padded after her king.

When they had gone, Kinyamkela sighed, shaking her head. "That one will speak of nothing else for days, you know," she remarked, and Uru caught the irritation in her friend's voice.

"I know," Uru replied. "But I thought she had a right to hear it, since she insists upon taking part in Sarabi's life."

"Oh, she does more than insist," her friend sneered, reclining on her side. "I'm tempted to cuff her if she demands any more of my and my daughters' time." The edge in her voice surprised Uru -- Kinyamkela was temperamental, without question, and she still retained enough of her rogue heritage to actively despise any unasked for social interactions. Though Uru, too, was rogue enough to do the same, as Queen she was expected to be far more tolerant; she had, with time, become able to stifle instinct with training -- it sometimes made her think of what her sister must have had to do in her quest to become a priestess, though clearly the path to the queenship was far easier than that.

"She does only because she knows no better,"e Uru tried to reason with her, hoping to calm her friend down. For all her own personal distaste for Zamani, both for her treatment of Uru herself and for the way she treated the pride in general, Uru did not want her to be so shut off from Sarabi, even if she was now Kinyamkela's cub. It was cruel in a way that Uru could not accurately describe.

"Someone should teach her better, then," Kinyamkela returned. Uru couldn't exactly argue with her there, since it would do them all some good if Zamani knew of ways other than her own.

"Still," Uru said, "she has never been involved in a birth where the mother dies; this is her comfort." Despite not knowing the more intricate workings of Zamani's mind well, Uru knew that to be true, without mentioning whatever guilt factor there might be in the equation.

Kinyamkela sighed and Uru knew that she had won -- she would tolerate Zamani's involvement, if only for the time being. Uru suspected that there would be some point later on when Kinyamkela would tell the other lioness off, quite possibly for good. But until then, Uru had done her job as queen and maintained the peace between the lionesses of the pride.

----------

URU SPEAKS...

_The pride was doubly thrilled to have the announcement of betrothal on the same day as the presentation of the princes -- and triply so, I should think, because their next queen would come from their own blood and not that of a rogue. It has never failed to amaze me, and now to amuse me, how paranoid they are of lionesses from without the pride, while they are all too ready when the heat takes them to seek a male they may well never meet again. It is a double standard that I fear I may never fully understand._

_Time was suspended in those days following, each one flowing smoothly into the next, an endless now that was both comforting and stifling. Kinyamkela and I often found ourselves rehashing the same topics, then joking about it once we realized just how many times before we had done it. Information from the outside came -- Kinyamkela still hunted without reproach, and even I was finally given leave to spend time on the savanna, be it to hunt or not -- but the rhythm of the pride was constant, and there was little change in those days. As for my own forays into the savanna, the cubs had, after all, survived and were healthy, so the fear of impending doom abated, and Kinyamkela and myself were glad to see it go. Our excursions -- mine in particular -- no longer made such an impact upon the pride as they had done in the days between Naima's death and the presentation of the princes. And though time seemed to stand still, sniffing the wind, it did in fact trot on._

_As the moon swung towards full, I grew anxious, knowing that if the Second Chose to Speak to me again, it would be at such a time as that. But the moon waxed and waned while the Four remained silent. By the dark moon, I had lost all hope that I should Hear Her again. And, yes, I say hope, for indeed that was what it was. I dared to hope that She might grace me with Her Presence so that I might understand what She had meant that ill-fated night when Naima died. It did not occur to me then, but now I know that it was the mental boulder I had inflicted upon myself -- that one which blocked Sight -- that had stopped my ears as well. True that the Four could still Speak to me if They so Chose, but I can now see what punishment I was due for turning from Them more than I knew I had. But done was done and I had no knowledge then that it was my own doing that had prevented me from Hearing Them. It would be long yet, when crisis stalked the Pride Lands, before I was given the chance to rescind what I had done. And I was grateful for that chance._

_But again I get ahead of myself, for the cubs were no longer cubs when I removed the boulder from my mind. By the dark moon after that silent full, they had begun to speak, infant words most of it: mother, father, sister, brother, and stumbling to pronounce the names of those around them. For all our misgivings about communal life, Kinyamkela and I saw the value in the nursery, since it gave them stimuli they would not have normally gotten, along with extra playmates should a sibling decide to fall asleep in the middle of a game. Despite his larger size, it was often Mufasa who was guilty of that, while Taka, as much trouble as Kinyamkela had predicted, if not more, would, after a few unsuccessful tugs on tail or ears, toddle on over to Sarabi and Sarafina to continue the game with them. We saw in those days the beginnings of their individual personalities: Mufasa was strong of body and of character, a worthy successor to his father's throne, even if he still fell asleep at the most inopportune times -- a trait that would disappear as he got older, though he always did sleep soundly; where his brother was strong, Taka was smart and it was easy to see even then why later the lionesses would call him an equal to the Trickster Herself; Sarabi had all the trappings of a queen, from poise and dignity to a good-natured tolerance of others; and Sarafina was the silent one, the last to start speaking, but never did she waste a word -- she was like her mother, though without quite the same fickle temper, I noticed and said as much to Kinyamkela, and, had it not been for her own sister staying and becoming queen, I suspect she could have -- would have -- gone off as my own sister had and joined the _mwana staarabu.

_The moon came dark too soon it seemed, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the days bleeding together. We led the four of them out to the pride that new moon night to finally begin to eat of the hunt and to incorporate them firmly into the pride -- never again would I or Kinyamkela be able to secret them away as we had. Sarabi met her other foster mother that night for what for her must have felt like the first time, Zamani having kept her interaction down to the odd meeting with Kinyamkela while she was out on the savanna. She was polite, I remember, and listened attentively, but I suspect she was not all that impressed, if only because Kinyamkela was not. The circumstances of Sarabi's birth, we had agreed, were not to be hidden from her -- if she asked, regardless of her age, she was to be told, and it was that night that she inquired of Zamani's role in her life and, thus, by default, we had to tell her of Naima's death. She took it well, perhaps because the concept of death was so new to her and she had never known any family other than Kinyamkela and Sarafina. Her sister watched the pride from the safety behind her mother's legs, but she too was polite when spoken to, if not a bit shy -- Sarafina's rogue blood was clearly apparent to any who knew just what to look for. As for my own little ones, they had had little exposure to their father up until then -- Ahadi both being busy with the kingship and respecting my earlier wishes to remain alone -- and were immediately intrigued by this very different lion, having only seen lionesses and other cubs up until that point. Mufasa's mouth must have been going faster than a cheetah can run, asking all kinds of questions, most of them expressing his disbelief that he would ever be like Ahadi -- that being that he would be as big and have a mane and be king, not quite so succinctly and certainly not just once. Even if he had wanted to, Taka couldn't have gotten a word in edgewise; instead he just listened, following his brother's questions and waiting for Ahadi to be able to answer through the din. We all had a good laugh when Mufasa tried to maintain that barrage while attempting to eat his first meal of meat at the same time. Even shy Sarafina found herself having to choke back her giggles so that she could eat. Embarrassed for the first time in his life, Mufasa grinned sheepishly at us and decided that his stomach had precedence over his curiosity -- he waited until he had finished his meal before resuming his steady stream of questions. He had to be told to wait until his father was finished, he was so eager to get back to it._

_From there on, the four of them were the center of the pride's world -- when it wasn't hunting, anyway. There wasn't a lioness on Pride Rock who wouldn't let them play with, on, or around her, even if she had been trying to nap -- that is, until they got more boisterous. While little, a lioness could still relax, and even potentially sleep, with them around; once they got bigger, though, it was quite another matter. Taka's wit was, even as a cub, sharper and quicker than several of the lionesses', and he often used that to his advantage, either with some prank or with his ability to get himself -- and his peers, as the case may be -- into and, subsequently, out of trouble. It was all I could do to teach him proper boundaries, let alone stay a few steps ahead. As his mother I had one weapon that the others did not: I knew him like only a mother can, and often times I would find myself being the only one among them who could see through his carefully constructed alibis or smooth deliveries, which is more of a testimony to that agile mind of his than to any attribute of my own. My heart still aches to know now how he eventually chose to use it._

_However, had his trickster nature been the only hardship that the pride as a whole had had to endure we could have considered ourselves lucky. As it was, nothing is so simple, and always is there some calm before even the fiercest of storms. Even without Sight or the Four Whispering in my ears, I knew that there was a tempest beyond the horizon, its thunder silent, perhaps, but there all the same._


	3. Lady of the Lake: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Uru lay under the acacias behind Pride Rock, eyes closed -- though she was only lightly dozing -- enjoying the relative peace of the _mchana_. Kinyamkela was stretched out on a nearby stone with only her tail tip not in the shade cast by one of the trees. Both were grateful for the reprieve: Mufasa and Taka were off with their father -- he had promised to show them the kingdom, both from the summit of Pride Rock and out on the savanna -- while Sarabi and Sarafina had managed to find entertainment without their playmates elsewhere. They had claimed to be going to pester some of the other lionesses -- though not quite in those terms -- since their mother had succeeded in growing weary of their games and Uru had passed on the opportunity to join in on one with them, citing her own boys as reason for her want for some quiet time. And, by the Four, it was good to finally get it. Her sons had managed to run her ragged and it was a relief to hear Ahadi say that he'd take them out for a day.

It was the third full moon since their birth -- a time when most cubs began trailing the lionesses on the hunt, even if they were more hindrance than help. For the princes, though, it marked the start of their lessons with their father. Uru had discovered that it was not just the heir who spent a lot of time with the king -- Taka, too, would be expected at these classes, much to Uru's considerable relief, as it would give him something to focus on other than pranks. Still, he had more free time than his brother, Mufasa having extra lessons that applied only to the heir -- he'd invariably end up spending more time with Ahadi, Uru knew, but thought little of it now, the cubs being so carefree. As for Sarabi and Sarafina, Kinyamkela's daughters would be following the pride the next time it hunted, which, by Uru's calculations, would not be for another few days. The pride had last made a kill a couple of days earlier -- an elephant calf that had become separated from its mother and the herd, making it an easy target for the lionesses -- and there was still meat enough on the carcass to provide them with a last meal tonight. Uru licked her lips at the memory of the taste.

A snort from Kinyamkela made her ears twitch. _Wouldn't be the first time she's snored,_ Uru thought, suppressing a giggle. But another, higher sound caught her attention: a shrill dual-noted cry that came and went either with the wind or from the maker needing to catch its breath. Uru rolled onto her stomach, head raised and ears forward. "Kinyamkela," she said, dread knotting in her belly. Even if she couldn't fully identify the sound, it made her fur stand on end. Kinyamkela grunted, her tail lashing into the air, more likely swatting away a bothersome tsetse fly than responding to Uru. Whatever was making that noise was coming towards Pride Rock at a dead run. "Kinyamkela!" she snapped, urgency lending a harsh edge to her voice. The other lioness blinked blearily awake with a start.

"What?" she asked irritably, giving Uru a dirty look.

Uru ignored it."Listen," she said, tense. The sound wavered from two notes down to one, the second joining in again, and Uru realized that it was not being made by one creature but two. Kinyamkela stood up, her ears at attention. Uru, too, rose. It was close now. "It almost sounds like --" Uru began, but was cut short by Kinyamkela yelling out her daughters' names. 

As if on cue, the wordless screaming coalesced into a mixed and alternating response of "Mother," "Mom," and "Mommy!" Uru glanced over at her friend, who had leaped in the direction that the calls were coming from, searching for a sight of her daughters, and possibly whatever it was that had frightened them so. Only a moment and they burst forth from the grasses and buried themselves against their mother's protective legs. Uru sat down.

"What happened?" she asked for Kinyamkela, as the other lioness was busy consoling her children, telling them that they were safe and licking the tops of their heads to prove it. She could guess, but wanted to make certain that this wasn't in fact a real threat to the cubs that they had just evaded.

"Oh, Aunt Uru, it was _aw_ful!" Sarabi sniffed, wiping her nose against her foreleg before huddling back against Kinyamkela. 

"Yeah, awful," Sarafina agreed between her mother's loving licks.

Kinyamkela paused and nudged both of them forward. "Tell us," she said gently, prodding them with her nose. For all of her sometimes abrasive nature -- Uru knew the pride contributed that to her being a rogue by birth, but knew that that wasn't the truth of the matter -- Kinyamkela could be surprisingly tender, especially when it came to her cubs and their wellbeing.

Sarabi and Sarafina exchanged worried glances and Uru couldn't help but wonder if it was all a charade. But, no, Taka would be apt to concoct some stunt like this, not Sarabi and Sarafina. "We got bored playing," Sarabi began, sitting down in front of Uru. Sarafina followed suit and Kinyamkela lay down behind them.

"No one wanted to play anymore, anyway," Sarafina added, her tail wrapping itself nervously about her paws.

"And we were thirsty," Sarabi continued. "So we headed down to the waterhole." At Uru's disapproving frown -- they were still too young to be venturing out onto the savanna alone -- Sarabi rushed to add, "But most of the lionesses were sleeping or talking or something, and you and Mom said you didn't want to be bothered --"

"So we thought it'd be OK for us to go by ourselves," Sarafina backed her up, nodding emphatically. "Especially if nothing happened."

"And we didn't expect anything to happen, honest!" Sarabi said. _What cub ever expects something bad to happen on some little foray to a well-known place?_ Uru thought, recalling her own cubhood. She cast a glance over the cubs' heads at Kinyamkela, silently imploring that they not get punished for this -- they had been sufficiently frightened into obedience by whatever it was that they had found. The other lioness met her eyes and nodded her consent.

"When we got to the waterhole we found tracks," Sarafina said, looking over at her sister.

"_Weird_ tracks," Sarabi added. "They were all gross and muddy and it looked like whatever it was had really really strange feet...and lots of 'em!" She made a face, clearly disgusted by the thought of whatever it was that could have possibly made tracks like those. Uru wondered, too, what could have made them, since up until she had said that it had lots of feet, she would have been willing to venture a guess that they had stumbled upon hippopotamus tracks. Now she wasn't so sure, but there was still one option that she wasn't about to rule out.

"Yeah," Sarafina agreed. "We didn't know any kind of creature that leaves a trail like _that_." _Odd,_ Uru thought, _that she should use the past tense._ That meant that they had actually seen whatever it was.

"So, curious, we followed them." Sarabi got to her feet and pantomimed tracking down an animal.

Sarafina nodded, narrating, "They led to the water's edge" -- Sarabi stopped and stretched out, as if she were peering over and into the water, not wanting to get her feet wet -- "so we looked for it. We didn't see anything, so we drank" -- Sarabi crouched on her imaginary shore. "Suddenly" -- Sarabi tensed -- "it sprang out of the water at us!" Sarabi squealed and leaped backwards in mock panic, racing back to her sister's side.

"It was _hideous_!" she said, shaking herself, probably trying to rid herself of the memory. "It was all covered in sludge from the waterhole and had at _least_ six legs --"

"It was waving two pairs of them at us," Sarafina clarified, "and had to be rearing back up on at least one more."

"Yeah" Sarabi agreed. "And it was just ICK!" She made a gagging noise to support the claim.

"Did it chase you?" Uru asked. More and more this tale was proving her initial hunch right. For all their terror, there had been no real threat.

"Well, um, I..." Sarabi turned to her sister for support.

"I don't think so," Sarafina admitted sheepishly.

"That's good for it," Kinyamkela said, scooping them to her. "If it had it would have had to deal with me and your aunt." They nodded solemnly up at her, but their mother winked at their aunt when they buried their noses in her fur. "What do you think?" she asked.

Uru flipped her tail tip. "I think," she said, a small smirk on her lips, "that school is out." She shook her head, sighing . The girls would not be pleased to know that they had been had by her sons -- it would doubtless spawn a rough-and-tumble wrestling match between them, if only as a means of soothing Sarabi and Sarafina's battered egos. But before it did, Uru would have to have a little chat with both of her boys about it: they weren't supposed to be at the waterhole alone anymore than their victims had been and certainly there was something to be said about not scaring folks half to death for mere laughs. It was kind of ironic, since she could almost hear them laughing now. Uru blinked. "Speak of the Second," she muttered and, sure enough, in bounded the two troublemakers a short moment later.

"Good afternoon, Mother," Taka grinned, twining himself between her legs. "Nice nap, I trust?" Uru smiled, shaking her head slightly. _What am I going to do with you, Taka?_

"Hi, Mom," Mufasa pranced up, purposefully jostling his younger brother aside. Taka staggered a few steps before managing to get his disturbed balance under control. He stuck his tongue out at his sibling, who didn't notice. Snorting, he trotted over to Kinyamkela and her daughters, who had perked up at the show.

"Afternoon, Aunt Kinya," he said, greeting her with equal charm.

"Hello, Taka," Kinyamkela sighed, rolling her eyes skyward.

"And how are the two Saras today?" he asked, pausing in front of them, tail held high in a question mark.

"Better," Sarafina said quietly. Sarabi nodded vigorously.

"Taka," Uru called before he could say any more to them.

"Yeah, Mom?" he asked, bouncing back over to her. Mufasa met him half way, pouncing on him, and knocking him down. "Hey!" Taka cried, squirming under his brother's greater weight. "Off! Off!" He kicked upwards at Mufasa's stomach to make his point, but to little effect -- he remained pinned against the ground.

"Mufasa," Uru admonished and, with a sheepish grin in her direction, he released Taka, who got sourly to his feet, once again sticking out his tongue. Mufasa swatted him lightly on the back -- well, lightly had Taka been the same size as him; as it was, the smaller cub was nearly knocked back down into the dust.

"Cut that out!" he snapped, trying to regain his composure. "Mom's talking." Taka turned to face Uru while Mufasa, after scowling at his brother, did the same.

From her seat, Uru couldn't help but smile at the two -- they were clowns even when they didn't want to be, if only because they seemed so completely mismatched: Mufasa was unerringly jovial while Taka had a far more unpredictable temperament, easily going from willingly joining in on Mufasa's rough play to near hostility when he wasn't interested. _If only he would place boundaries for himself the same way he does for his brother._ "Tell me," she said sternly -- as if she were going to punish them -- watching for any signs of guilt. They had played this game with her before and had, she must admit, gotten quite good at it. "How did your lessons go?" she asked -- as if she had had no inclination to do anything except just that -- watching this time for signs of relief.

Taka tried to exchange a brief look with his brother, but Mufasa sprang to his feet and began talking. "Great!" he fairly bubbled. "Dad took us all the way up to the top of Pride Rock -- boy, can you see _ev_'rything -- and told us about how he won't live forever -- I didn't like that, it made me sad -- and how one day I'm gonna be _king_! I didn't believe it and neither did Taka --"

"Still don't," Taka muttered, examining a claw.

"And then he talked about how a king _can't_ always do everything he wants -- I didn't see why not -- so he explained about the Circle of Life and how everything's connected and all and how we need to respect all the creatures -- from ant to antelope -- and...and...it was just so _neat_!" Mufasa was panting by the end of it and Uru wondered if he had managed all that on one breath. He looked around, possibly searching for a reminder for something he might have missed.

"Sit," Taka said, pushing his brother's rump down before he could say anything else, simultaneously flipping a muddy twig out of Mufasa's tail tuft. Uru smiled inwardly -- doubtless Taka had meant for that little motion to go unnoticed, but she had seen it and knew that there was, in that, all the proof she needed. Now all she had to do was trap them and, while Taka was well versed in avoiding such scrutiny and interrogation, Mufasa was far less deceptive and could not always be trusted by his littermate to maintain an impermeable alibi. Much as she hated to admit it, Uru knew that, in the end, Mufasa would be the one who, feeling guilty after hearing about the results of one supposed joke or another, would come to her in secret and confess, much to Taka's chagrin. Once or twice Uru had been forced to employ such tactics by making those results sound worse than they really were, which, in turn, made her feel guilty, too. To some extent it made Uru wonder why the brothers continued to work together when it came to these pranks, since Mufasa was not always happy with the results and Taka could not always count on him to keep quiet.

"And," Uru said, "where is your father?" This she could always verify with him, so, if they didn't answer taking that into consideration, their story wouldn't match his and she knew whom she was most likely to believe at the moment. She had managed to catch Taka once under similar circumstances: all four cubs were being watched by one of the other lionesses -- it could well have been Zamani, now that Uru thought about it -- while she accompanied the hunting party on a scouting mission. When she returned she found that some havoc had been done in her absence and that, when questioned about it, what the cubs said was not confirmed by what their sitter said. If Uru knew her sons, then at least one of them would have learned from that experience.

Taka shrugged. "He went off to take care of another antelope and hippo problem," he said, his tail curling innocently about his paws. "I do believe Kiboko's stinking up one of the waterholes that they frequent...again." _Ah, yes, that is an oft-recurring problem._ Kiboko was one of the Pride Lands' resident hippopotamuses and had a penchant for cool clear water...unfortunately he was not so fastidious when it came to his own hygiene and could quickly spoil the most pristine of waterholes. And, worst of all, he was stubborn about it -- if Taka was right, then Ahadi would be busy for most of the day, if not into the night when Kiboko would finally leave the water to graze.

Uru used that as an excuse to look worried -- as his mate she could well afford to dwell on how long he may be gone -- to lull her sons into a false sense of security. "When did he leave?" she asked, both to get a bearing upon when she could even begin to hope for him to return -- assuming that her son was telling her the truth -- and to see if she could catch them in a lie. She could have, had she so chosen, just accused them outright of terrifying Sarabi and Sarafina at the waterhole, thus leaving them to sputter while she lectured them on how cruel and mean-spirited their prank had been. But then she would have had to provide proof so that she herself couldn't be accused of jumping to conclusions and potentially end up blaming them for something that they might not have done. And besides, these little mind games helped to serve as a reminder that, no matter how carefully planned or executed their schemes were, she could always figure them out in the end. It was her way of telling her sons -- Taka in particular -- that they could not expect to get away with anything, let alone everything, and that their mother was still wise to their tricks.

Taka thought about it. "He left when --"

"When Haraka -- you know, Mom, that ostrich with an ear for gossip? -- told him that things were getting ugly over at one of the waterholes that the antelopes view as their own," Mufasa cut in, clearly overjoyed to be discussing their day again. "That was, what, around _saa sita mchana_, right Taka?" He turned to his brother for confirmation but got a very harsh glare in return. Mufasa's smile instantly vanished, his ears drooping. "Oops," he said sheepishly, giving Taka an ingratiating grin. 

From where she sat Uru saw Kinyamkela smile and nod at her -- the game was up. _Saa sita mchana_ was when the sun was directly above Pride Rock; it was now halfway between there and the western horizon. Uru knew that Ahadi, responding to Haraka's news, would have dashed off to whatever waterhole that Kiboko had appropriated without so much as a glance at the position of the sun. As a result, his sons could have chosen almost any time that they wanted for his departure and he -- not having as much experience as she did when it came to dealing with them -- would have likely agreed with whatever time they offered him when she asked. _Clever,_ she thought. _Very clever._ "So," she said, her tone deliberately set to let them know that she had noticed that little slip up, "what did you do between then and now?"

Mufasa looked to his brother, still crestfallen that his excitement had made his tongue run faster than it should have, especially considering the circumstances. Taka scowled at him. "Why don't _you_ tell Mom, Brother Dear?" he sneered. Uru would have to talk to him about that -- when something went wrong with the execution of one of his plans, Taka could be unforgiving to more than a fault.

Mufasa was stung -- it wasn't the first time Uru had seen Taka like this with his brother, and more than once Mufasa had talked to her about it afterwards, but it still hurt him and Uru wasn't about to let her youngest get away with it. "Why don't you tell me, Taka?" she asked him sternly, summoning every bit of her best no-nonsense mother voice.

It had the desired effect: Taka flinched and laughed nervously at her. "Me?" he practically squeaked. Uru nodded and he swallowed hard. "Well, we, uh..." he began, casting a furtive glance in the direction of Kinyamkela and her daughters. "Um...you don't suppose this could be a private hearing, do you?" he asked hopefully. It came as no surprise to her that he didn't want to admit to it with the victims right behind him.

Uru shook her head. She wasn't going to let him off that easily -- if he wanted to play games like that then he had better learn that he was going to have to suffer their consequences, whatever they may be. _And, with any luck, it may even succeed in dissuading him from doing anything worse,_ she thought, not altogether sure what that _worse_ could be.

"Yes, Taka," Kinyamkela added coolly. "Do tell." Uru raised an eyebrow at that as Taka squirmed where he sat -- if confessing in front of Kinyamkela wasn't bad enough, then having her waiting for that confession must have been harder still. Uru suspected that that had been her friend's intent: to make this difficult enough for him so that he'd think twice before doing something similar again.

"We, uh..." he began, stopping to clear his throat before continuing in a hurried whisper, "we went to the waterhole and pretended to be a muck monster." He coughed when he finished, giving his older brother a guilty sidelong glance.

Uru was about to make him say it louder and more slowly, but Sarabi and Sarafina beat her to it, springing to their paws and rushing the two brothers. "You...!" they cried in tandem, colliding with their dual once tormentors and now victims. All four rolled together in a writhing bundle of paws and tails -- with assorted growls and grunts coming from within -- before breaking apart: Mufasa and Taka running hard while Sarabi and Sarafina gave chase. They vanished into the grasses around Pride Rock -- Uru doubted that they would go far, if only because the ledges and crevices of the kopje provided perfect hiding places and means of escape for her two sons. She shook her head, having known that it would have ended something like that. Sighing, she lay back down, Kinyamkela grinning at her.

"What?" Uru asked her friend, feigning irritation. She had learned long ago that such a grin usually meant that there was something that she wanted to say...and typically it was a joke at Uru's expense. _Why delay the inevitable?_ she thought, her eyes skyward.

"Oh, nothing," Kinyamkela shrugged nonchalantly. She leaned back to sun herself on the warm rocks. Uru stared at her -- that wasn't at all what she had expected. _Oh well,_ she told to herself, stretching out again. What was it that some of the jungle bums said? _Hakuna matata?_ It didn't really matter that much to Uru. As it was, there was still some time before the sun sank too low in the heavens and the pride began to think about eating again -- the elephant calf carcass was still there, so hunting wasn't an issue for the present. And the cubs would be busy wearing themselves out until then, if they hadn't succeeded in doing so already anyway. For the moment, then, it was safe to simply ignore the world and relax.

----------

A gentle prod some time later brought Uru back from her reverie. Blinking blearily in the dimmed light of the _magharibi_, she rolled over to catch sight of whoever it was who had roused her. She half-expected to see Kinyamkela, or even Ahadi, standing over her, but instead she saw, sitting a short distance away, a guilty Taka. He had his tail curled nervously about him -- an attempt to make himself look even smaller and less conspicuous than he already was -- and refused to meet her gaze full on. Uru raised herself up, her first instinct to go over and comfort him.

"Taka, _tiba_," she said gently, forcing herself to remain where she was -- her second instinct warning her that he could be intentionally tugging on her heart strings. It certainly wouldn't be the f irst time and she doubted that it would be the last. And that made it awkward for Uru, because it was these charades that she had little defense against -- give them too much credit and her son would manage to lessen the effects that a punishment had on him, but give them too little and Uru dared not think of the damage that could be wrought if he was being honest with her. "What's wrong?"

He peered up at her with round eyes. His mouth opened slightly, as if to speak, but he shut it again before getting a word out. Silently, he shook his head, his eyes wavering timidly to the ground.

Uru watched him and her heart cried out. "Come on, _tiba_," she coaxed. "You can tell _Mama_." Despite how often she found herself having to discipline him for one thing or another -- most likely a stunt like the one he had pulled earlier today on Sarabi and Sarafina -- he could always talk to her. Uru prided herself on that one thing, if nothing else: she was there for her sons whenever they needed her. For Taka to feel that there was something that he could not tell her was a blow, a swipe aimed to shatter that image of herself, even if it turned out to only be a delusion in the end.

Her son cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, as if fearing that he would be overheard. Uru, too, looked around, attempting to give him peace of mind by supporting his wish to be alone with her. Kinyamkela was gone, she realized. _Probably off rounding up her daughters._ She let her eyes come to rest on Taka once more. He shuffled his paws nervously, disturbing some dust. He sneezed as it reached his nose and he wiped his muzzle on the inside of his foreleg, sniffling. She smiled dolefully at him, that small action only making him look more pitiful in his guilt than he had been before. "You're not...you're not still mad, are you?" he asked hesitantly, licking his nose apprehensively.

"Mad?" Uru said, surprise lending a higher pitch to her voice. It hadn't occurred to her that she and Kinyamkela might have gone too far in reprimanding him and his brother -- and, certainly, that scuffling match with the girls would have provided ample distraction for them from that reprimanding. _Apparently not..._she sighed. "Come here," she instructed gently, beckoning him over with a lazy wave of her front paw. He sank lower where he sat and Uru realized that he must think that he was in for another scolding. "Come," she said again, softer this time, placing her paw down so as not to make it seem like such a command. Slowly, Taka got to his feet and, dragging paws and tail, complied. When he was within reach, she scooped him to her chest. She kissed the top of his head, her rough tongue sending the hairs there in every direction save the right one. "What makes you think that I'm still mad?" she asked, nuzzling him.

She felt him bury his nose under chin. "You were angry earlier," he replied, his voice muffled as he spoke through her fur.

Uru smiled softly even though she knew that he couldn't see it. "Yes," she agreed, "I was angry earlier. But that does not mean that I will remain angry forever."

He pulled away from her so that he could study her face. She had noticed how he had a knack for reading others' emotions, thus better allowing him to mask his own. Uru could only pray to the Four that he would only use that talent for nothing more malicious than these pranks. _But I do not Hear Them by my own choice, so why should They Choose to hear me?_ She shoved the dismal thought away, convinced that They listened even when mortals did not. "It doesn't?" Taka asked hopefully and Uru was snapped back to the present and her son sitting trustingly between her paws.

"No, it doesn't,"e she assured him. "It is not wise to remain angry at someone forever." This was a lesson her own mother had taught her when she was his age, and it was something that she had been meaning to talk to him about anyway. _No time like the present._ Taka's rather unpredictable temperament -- Uru suspected that he came by it from her side, since one of her two sisters who had not gone to join the_ mwana staarabu _had been even harder to live with -- warranted a need for him to learn that while it was not a good idea to remain stuck in any one emotion, it was even less of one should that emotion be one such as anger or hate. Change was imperative, but only with control. This was, Uru knew, something that even priestesses and shamans were taught, though they honed it further than she dared to imagine and with methods she couldn't even begin to conceive.

"Why not?" Taka queried, his fear of incurring any further punishment apparently forgotten, replaced by his unerring curiosity. Uru had been right to name him as she had, for, indeed, he asked many questions.

She smiled at him and groomed away the dried tears on his cheeks -- she had not noticed until then that he had been crying, probably into her fur or before she had awaken. He did not squirm or make a face as he and his brother usually did whenever they were given even a short bath. "Because," she told him, pausing in her licking, "if we did then we would end up hurting those we loved most." She resumed cleaning away the tears and he snuggled against her as best he could. Silently she held him there -- silent until she began to purr, the simultaneously rough and soothing sound shrouding them in their own world consisting only of mother, young son, and the fierce devotion between them. If she had had the power, Uru would have made time stand still for that moment, protected from the future that must surely come to steal the innocence of cubhood away. Never did she want it to happen, but, inevitably, she knew that it would and she could not make time halt for her or her dreams.

Reluctantly, she let her purr die and, licking the top of Taka's head once more, brought the moment to its end. Her son peered up at her, a shy smile on his face. The light of the stars -- the moon had not yet risen -- reflected in his large eyes, now finally free of their infant blue to become that striking chartreuse she had known he would have. She kissed him again and he rubbed his head and neck under her chin, stopping just behind his shoulders; his tail curling up to absently tickle her cheek. Uru mouthed it, chuckling to herself, and Taka twisted around to stand on his hind legs, his forepaws braced against her muzzle and neck. He nuzzled his cheek against hers, a thin purr -- the loudest he could manage -- thrumming from his throat. She nosed him tenderly in the chest and he tumbled backwards to land against her foreleg. He smiled up at her, his paws pedaling slightly, and she smiled back. "Tell me," she said, licking his cheek and ear, "where is your brother? Did Sarabi and Sarafina manage to catch him while you got away?" Uru winked at him on the last, not wanting to hearken back to the interrogation she had given him and his brother earlier that day.

Taka laughed and she knew that she had succeeded. "Oh, Muff got caught, alright," he snickered. "And the two Saras were _mer_ciless when he was." He broke out into giggles and Uru knew that he was thinking of whatever it was that the girls had done.

"And you didn't help?" she asked teasingly. One prank was almost as good as any other to Taka -- his were always best, but so long as he wasn't the victim, someone else's could be just as enjoyable. Uru suspected that he had merely sat back and watched, laughing, as Mufasa got the brunt of the punishment.

"Me?" he squeaked, doing his best to look absolutely innocent. It didn't quite work, since he was smiling too hard, holding back the giggles. "He seemed to be doing okay." Uru raised an eyebrow, doubting it. "Well, I mean," Taka amended, "he was all" -- he pulled himself up and lowered his voice in mimicry of his brother -- "'Taka --! Brother, help me!'" Taka snickered, continuing in his own voice, "Of course, that was choked out between fits of laughter, since the two Saras were tickling him and stuff -- and how! -- so it wasn't like he was in any _real_ danger."

"And, then, neither were you," Uru pointed out. If Mufasa had been in so little danger, then it should have been easy for Taka to go and rescue him. But, she knew, that he had said it only as an excuse not to do just that. She doubted that he would have sat on the sidelines had it been anything truly serious. Or so she hoped.

Taka snorted, "But he looked like he was having so much _fun_; I simply wouldn't dream of spoiling it for him." He raised his nose in the air. _Parish the thought,_ Uru shook her head.

"So," she asked, "what _did_ you do?" _This ought to be interesting._

"Me?" he laughed. "I climbed the nearest tree and sat there watching. They were so busy with Mufasa that they didn't bother chasing me and since they're heavier than I am, they couldn't have followed me if they had wanted too, I was just too high up." He nodded matter-of-factly. Uru didn't particularly like that he would -- and did -- climb trees as high as he could, the thin branches bending beneath him. Always forward in her mind was _what if something went wrong?_ He was safe, though, so she let this one time slide. To his credit, certainly, he did know his limits and never went any higher than those. "So," he said, continuing, "I stayed up there and watched -- boy, was _that_ entertaining! -- but Sarabi was all" -- and again he did an impersonation -- "'You're next, Taka!' But they couldn't get me and I wasn't budging, so, when they finally finished with Mufasa -- he just got so tired that it wasn't any fun for them anymore -- Sarabi said that I'd have to come down some time. I told her that I could wait and that's what we did, while Muff caught his breath. Eventually, Aunt Kinya showed up and collected the two Saras -- Muff went with them. She said that the pride was gonna finish off that elephant calf tonight and that I should go tell you." He stopped and giggled nervously, "Guess I kinda forgot, huh?"

Uru smiled warmly at him. "You didn't forget," she told him. "You just didn't tell me right away." She winked and nuzzled him behind the ear. He purred quietly to himself. "Come on," she said, standing. "We're not too late for dinner." Taka bounced to his feet and gamboled along after her as they made their way back around Pride Rock to where the kill was being kept.

Upon arriving at the carcass -- located beneath the ceremonial promontory, hidden to some extent there from scavengers until its inevitable relocation into the open so that the site could be cleaned by those same scavengers -- Uru noticed that the majority of the pride had finished and that, as such, there was little left for her and her youngest son. Of her elder son, she spotted him sprawled lethargically near Sarabi, the two of them lazily batting a piece of rib bone back and forth between them -- by their slow movements, Uru guessed that they had successfully gorged themselves. However, the one who had truly eaten herself to a standstill was little Sarafina, collapsed into sleep on top of the calf's ribcage, the hide stretching under her weight. Uru smiled to herself, shaking her head -- it was no secret that leonines could sleep in almost any locale, and in some of the oddest positions at that, at almost any time. It was, Uru reflected, one of the benefits of being the dominant predator in a region. She scanned the scene, Taka standing between her forepaws, waiting for her signal to proceed. There was no need, really, to pause -- she was queen, after all, and a mother besides; there were few who would have dared to challenge her right to a kill. As it was, the others were so preoccupied with digesting that she somewhat doubted that they would have roused themselves to so much as look at her had she been a rogue in their midst. _Ah, but I am,_ she mused despondently, taking in the scene of pridal bliss before her. Zamani, only half awake, was keeping a drowsy eye on Mufasa and, particularly, Sarabi. Though she had stopped pestering Kinyamkela to the point of the latter being tempted to cuff her, Zamani had maintained, for good or ill, a fixed interest in Sarabi's life. Her mind drawn to her friend, Uru sought out Kinyamkela, her eyes scanning the assembled lionesses. She found her reclining on her back, her forepaws folded against her chest and her hind paws in the air, not far from a group comprised of the three season sisters -- Nafasi, Wahedi, Amani -- gossiping amongst themselves, though Uru guessed that Kinyamkela, for all her apparent lassitude, was listening to every word. On the fringe -- in the interest of escaping the chattering threesome -- the two elder sisters, Bora and Tulizana, licked away the last traces of their meals from their paws and faces. For a moment, Uru was struck by a pang of isolation, recalling how distant all of them -- save for Kinyamkela and the cubs -- were to her. She dismissed the feeling with a flip of her tail tuft and, prodding Taka with her nose, moved towards the carcass to claim her share.

From the corner of her eye, Uru caught a movement. She turned to see that Mufasa had raised his head to watch her. Having gotten her attention, he smiled in greeting, too full to get up. She smiled back, understanding. He went back to his game with Sarabi while Uru turned her focus to the matter at paw: eating.

Taka had beaten her to the carcass and was already hip-deep in elephant abdomen, his tail the only thing indicating that he was even there. Shaking her head, a bemused smile on her muzzle, she gently nudged the sleeping Sarafina. Uru would have been content to let her remain there, except that the state of the carcass would doubtlessly require some significant work to get a decent meal out of, and thus the cub would be displaced far less courteously than if she were awakened now. Sarafina blinked groggily at her, her off-green eyes bleary with sleep and its resultant confusion. "Sorry, _mwana_," Uru told her sympathetically, purposefully using the word that meant both _lady_ and _child_. There was little doubt in her mind that Sarafina had the potential to be a priestess in the same way that her sister Sarabi had the potential to be a queen. "You'll have to settle somewhere else for the time being." 

Sarafina blinked at her again, her eyes clearing only marginally. "I do?" she asked drowsily.

Uru nodded and Sarafina slowly got to her feet, fighting with sluggish paws for balance on the shifting skin over the ribcage. Knowing that the cub was too torpid to get down without help, Uru got a hold of her nape and lowered her safely to the ground. "Your mother's that way," she said, directing her tired niece with a nudge towards Kinyamkela.

Content, Uru returned her attention to acquiring a sufficient dinner from the depleted carcass. It wasn't easy -- requiring far more grunt work than she would have liked -- but she managed, and so, too, did Taka, his smaller size and muzzle allowing him access to scraps that she would have -- and had -- given up on. As she could well have expected, Taka finished first and, belly full, padded over to where his brother was playing with Sarabi. Uru watched, suppressing a giggle as he flopped down next to them and made a half-hearted swat at Mufasa's ear. The ear twitched, but little more, and all three were too lazy to follow-up on the game -- the rib fragment began to pass idly between them instead. Zamani roused herself enough to see that nothing was amiss, her eyes flitting quickly to Uru, before settling back into her previous vigil. Uru ignored her -- it was hardly a conversation that Zamani had been looking for, anyway -- and when she herself was finally satisfied, she walked over to Kinyamkela, who was, for all the Four, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. The three season sisters, however, were not and their talk gradually died down as she approached. Again Uru felt the pang of isolation, but it was banished by a question from Amani, always the most inclined to speak directly to her, save possibly for Zamani, if only because of the latter's domineering nature.

"Should we clear the kill?" she asked, perhaps misinterpreting the intent of Uru's approach -- she had merely wished to ask Kinyamkela if Ahadi had returned yet.

Distracted out of her thoughts, Uru paused, gazing at Amani and her two companions -- they shifted uncomfortably in the interim -- then back at what little remained of the carcass. "There's not much left on that, is there?" she asked, the question posed more for herself than for the others.

"Yes, _bibie_," Amani agreed, and Uru winced inwardly at the formal -- however respectful -- address. It formed a barrier between her and the pride, a barrier that she was so conditioned to that she reflexively drew about her the aura of reserved matriarch. It was, she knew, how these pride-born lionesses expected a rogue to act, especially one who had usurped them to become their queen. _If only they knew otherwise,_ Uru pined, thinking of all the times she had tried to connect with them and had failed. Had they grown up together as cubs perhaps it would have been different, but they were a good two cycles of the seasons older than she and had thus been concerned with things more important than playing with cubs -- namely, proving themselves capable in the hunt.

"If you would," Uru said, answering Amani's earlier question, and so preoccupied with her own dismal thoughts that Uru was certain that the three -- and any others who were listening -- would take it for that same reserved sense of matriarchy that they so demanded of her. Amani nodded and, wordlessly, she and the others rose to remove the carcass, nodding deferentially as they passed Uru by. Uru sighed -- no matter how often she had to hide her nature behind that illusion, it never got any easier.

"Life's not fair, is it?" Kinyamkela asked suddenly and Uru turned to her. She still had her eyes closed and paws folded, but the amused flip of her tail told Uru that she was as awake as she had originally suspected; doubtless she had heard every word.

"No, I suppose it's not," Uru sighed, her attention going once again to the three season sisters as they dragged the carcass out from under the promontory -- the cubs watched, mildly interested, judging by the set of their ears and the length of time it took before they got bored, which wasn't very long. She had known since cubhood -- due to her mother's teachings -- that life was seldom fair, but to hear it spoken now in confirmation of those teachings was hardly a consolation.

"Such are the Four," her friend said, rolling onto her side, finally breaking her ruse of relaxation. That, too, was true, and no more comforting to Uru. _Though, I suppose, it should be._ She sighed again, letting her gaze fall once more upon the lioness at her side. Kinyamkela raised an eyebrow expectantly -- did she suspect that Uru had come to see her, as opposed to giving orders to the others? Uru could only wonder, but they had known each other since as far back as each could remember, and she could guess that her friend knew her better than that.

Inwardly thankful for a distraction from her dejected thoughts, Uru managed a reluctant smile. "You haven't seen Ahadi yet, by any chance?" He was always so busy; it would be a relief to be able to spend some time with him again. Certainly she and her sons were as deserving of his attention as the rest of the kingdom.

"Still off chasing antelopes and hippos, I'm afraid," Kinyamkela said, giving her paw one more post-dinner lick. Uru's ears drooped, not caring if her disappointment showed so clearly. "Though," her friend continued -- probably catching that display -- with a quick glance at the sky, "by this time Kiboko should be out of that waterhole. I'd guess he'd be finishing up right around now."

Uru nodded. Kinyamkela was right, of course, in that whatever mess there was to clean up between the antelopes and Kiboko would be almost gone, at least for tonight anyway. What she didn't know -- or possibly didn't say -- was that it was just as likely, if not more so, for Ahadi to be called off to handle some other problem afterwards as it was for him to come home. There was, Uru knew, little reason to wait up; the site had been cleared and there would be no hunt tonight -- the rhythm of the pride demanded sleep now to conserve energy for when they would need it next. Quietly, she bid Kinyamkela good night and went to fetch her sons. Mufasa had, by this point, digested enough of his meal to manage toddling along behind her, but Taka had to be carried. They were getting big, she reflected, picking her younger son up. In another moon-cycle she wouldn't be able to transport them like this, save possibly for short distances. Or, she amended, at least Taka she would still be able to manage short distances, but Mufasa was a strain on her neck and jaws even now; in another moon it would be impossible to have hoisted him even as short a distance as from beneath the promontory to the communal cave. Her sons were growing up, much as she was loath to admit it.

"_Bibie?_" came the voice of one of the lionesses from behind her. Uru turned, placing Taka on the ground in front of her so that she was free to talk if the need arose. It was Bora, one of the senior lionesses of the pride. "When do we hunt next?" she asked. _Sensible Bora,_ Uru ruminated, considering her, _always thinking ahead._

Uru glanced skyward at the full moon that hung huge and pale gold amongst the stars -- there would be no luck hunting with that celestial presence; they would have to wait. "We can scout as soon as tomorrow night," she said, evaluating the now-waning light, "but we won't hunt until the moon is not so bright as to betray us." Bora nodded, accepting that. Even if the pride had possessed no knowledge of the Four -- which Uru knew was not true, though they knew far less than she or Kinyamkela -- common sense could have told them just as easily that a full moon spoiled the hunt.

"Will we be coming?" a small voice next to her inquired shyly. Uru looked down to see Sarabi peering up at her hopefully. The cubs were technically old enough to follow the pride and thus begin their hunting lessons, even if the odds were that they would pay little attention and be even less help.

"We'll see," Uru said noncommittally, smiling down at her niece. If the scouting reports were good, the cubs could certainly come along. But, if the prey promised to be more dangerous than most -- another elephant calf, perhaps, or a Cape buffalo -- they would have to wait until a more fortuitous hunt.

However Sarabi had chosen to take her answer, she seemed to be pleased by it, breaking into a broad grin. Uru, still smiling, lifted Taka back up off the ground and, the pride in tow, continued on to the communal cave.


End file.
